What does this mean to normal application development?
Well Jothi,I am trying to get ranchers' opinions on this model of delivery.
I felt that as IT gets more and more advanced,things that we do today may be made automated or configurable tomorrow.For example while earlier we used to struggle coding web applications,now we have got frameworks like struts for that.Similarly database interaction coding is simplified(or made more complex depending on your area of expertise and adaptability) using ORM.
Maybe going forward application development itself would be a matter of just configuring things and making them available for those who want it through the Cloud.
Now why I feel that this model can make biggies like IBM or Oracle rule the industry is because these are companies that are today beginning to look more and more like IT Super Markets that can provide everything and anything to do with IT...well almost.Now these firms would already be having their huge repositories of reusable software and they could well use that along with their ongoing research and development to come up with highly configurable and customizable applications along with traditional development which can be offered to their clients through the Cloud.
So basically once their early clients are happy,there will be repeat business as well as new firms signing them up.
Those that sign up could be big firms which will be more than happy to give their IT needs to these IT SuperMarkets.And maybe even SMEs could well opt for the Cloud as the IT SuperMarkets may definitely have them too included in their long term plans.
So that leaves less business for the current IT service providers who do routine maintenance and enhancements kind of work.They would have to buckle up and start innovating and creating some really solid products with high business value.Else they could see their business restricted to bread and butter maintenance stuff.
Moreover, making a product or service into more of a commodity only serves to reduce margins
I agree.But then it need not be sold as a commodity at all.Just that things can be configured and customised a bit and combined with traditional development can be delivered to the client.What I feel is this entire thing could be taken up by the IT organization itself.It is like an IBM or Oracle would tell its clients "Look here we have got this Cloud.And you have this entire range of requirements and we can develop and configure all this for you and deploy it for you.And yes we also maintain the same for you and with future enhancements too.So we will take care of your entire IT end to end from our end"