11.2. The Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning?

The history of enterprise software delivery reflects a constant reinvention of the way software-intensive systems deliver capabilities to their consumers. We’ve witnessed the move from mainframe computers to PCs, from PCs to supercomputers, and from computing grids to Internetworked cloud computing. With each of these evolutions, enterprise software delivery has experienced growth periods followed by realignment as new computer platforms and new software paradigms emerge to gradually replace the incumbent approaches.

According to what we see referred to as Bell’s law, a new platform emerges about every ten years to offer improved functionality in new areas, accompanied by lower prices for existing capabilities compared to those of the incumbent platform.⁶ These platforms (or “computer classes”) have included mainframes (1960s), minicomputers (1970s), networked workstations and personal computers (1980s), web-servers and n-tier architectures (1990s), web services (2000s), and mobile devices connected to networked computers (2003). The next platform evolution appears to be upon us: service-based delivery on a cloud platform.