By Jeff Nolan

Continuing from my previous article, I think the biggest change in IT will be its transition from being a centralized, one-size-fits-all solution and section off into three core areas: infrastructure, application services, and line-of-business liaisons.

IT as it currently exists is a failing proposition. Line-of-business management is not adequately represented, which leads to dissatisfaction by the end user with vendors specifically and IT as a whole. The average CIO is attempting to do more with less while faced with growing expenses for the maintenance of existing systems that offer incremental benefits while contributing to the inflexibility that prevents the business from advancing. The vendors, meanwhile, are unable to lower their cost of sales because IT demands a high-touch direct sales process.

Only the line-of-business liaison category, however, is new. IT is already managing infrastructure (servers, networks, and services), and applications services (e.g. Exchange, SAP, Oracle, Lotus Notes). Through pushing line-of-business application responsibility to the actual LoB, IT will be able to roll back best practices to other parts of the organization while at the same time offering more flexibility and responsiveness to their internal customers.

For customers, a reorganization of IT services will result in more responsive and flexible accommodation of business requirements. For vendors, such a shift will position them more directly with their end users, enable more flexibility in delivery options, and spur the development of business value networks.

The breadth of possibilities for the future of enterprise software, then, lies with the independent software vendors. In fact, look closely enough at the changes are already underway with ISVs are you will see that much of that future is already here.

Jeff Nolan is a vice president with Newsgator. He previously worked at SAP and SAP Ventures.