Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive Defining the Agenda (1990) / Chapter Skim
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4. Services and Systems Integration
4. Services and Systems Integration
Pages 40-49
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From page 40... ...
Annual rates of growth in nearly all segments of the services industry exceed 10 percent; in some, growth rates top 20 percent and are expected to remain at that level for the near future.2 One booming segment, and potentially the most lucrative, is systems integration, which entails designing, implementing, and maintaining complex systems of computing and communication equipment and software, often in combination with other types of equipment and systems. Systems-integration firms help businesses and other clients achieve the desired interoperability of their information technology.
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From page 41... ...
Turner, executive director of the Price Waterhouse Technology Center, "created an opportunity for brokers to interpose themselves between clients and the traditional proprietary hardware and software vendors." For prospective clients, Turner added, systems-integration firms offered an "alluring" service: "a reduced tie-in to the proprietary systems of any one vendor, a more cost-effective solution to the needs of the client, made possible by 'cherry-picking' the best of the offerings of several vendors, and all this coupled with a single source of management and accountability that gave the chief information officer some degree of career insurance." The attractiveness of the concept has been proven, compelling even vendors
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From page 42... ...
management, and the organizational issues. And also required, critically, is a problem-solving process that gets the people involved and that is all of them, both users and systems designers, thinking outside the box and beyond the obvious solutions." Inherent in the process of integrating multivendor information technology is the need to form flexible partnerships, not unlike the horizontal and vertical cooperative relationships that many have advocated for other industries in the computer sector.
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From page 43... ...
Rather they are good business practices, sometimes applied in ways that may go beyond conventional expectations. Foremost among these is the demonstrated importance of developing close working relationships with customers, a point made by all industry representatives at the colloquium.
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From page 44... ...
Interestingly, early advances in overseas markets to date have been facilitated by business relationships launched in the United States. For example, the requirement for a local presence overseas by accounting firms like Price Waterhouse that serve multinational clients has provided a springboard for serving foreign clients, a development noted by Turner, while the merger of EDS with General Motors opened doors to new relationships with foreign firms for EDS, according to Heller.
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From page 45... ...
Willcoxon called for an "enlightened combination of cooperation and competition." He said that firms must cooperate in developing and selecting appropriate standards and then compete in "devising solutions that are best tailored to user needs." Turner of Price Waterhouse offered a complementary view. While acknowledging fears that standards may hurt innovative software and hardware companies, he urged firms to view the issue from the perspective of users who have invested heavily in information technology but who have not reaped the antici
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From page 46... ...
Systems-integration firms, for example, link once-independent islands of hardware, applications, and their specialized domains of software into a functioning whole, just as roads connect previously isolated communities into zones of commerce. Like the businesses that now line many stretches of the nation's highway system, a growing array of electronic databases and other specialized services have sprouted up to serve an increasing number of users whose computers are connected to networks.
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From page 47... ...
According to Ferguson, a national information infrastructure will not only become an economic necessity, but its development also will be a direct stimulus to a "very wide spectrum of information- and technology-intensive industries." Manufacturers of base technologies for semiconductor packaging, automated assembly, optoelectronics, and production of printed circuit boards and fiberoptic cable would benefit from infrastructure-oriented research projects and, ultimately, from the demand generated by the actual construction and implementation of the network and the associated user equipment. Moreover, the proposed network could be the means for U.S.
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From page 48... ...
Proponents of a national information network also injected cautionary notes into their endorsements of the concept. For example, Stardent Computer's Gordon Bell, who helped craft a proposal for a national research and education network while he was an assistant director of the National Science Foundation, warned that continuing erosion of the nation's manufacturing base may mean that many infrastructural components, such as switches and optical fiber, may have to be purchased from foreign suppliers.
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From page 49... ...
Toward a National Research Network Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988~. Ferguson, Charles H
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