Are the days of IT managements picking `best of breed’ solutions for major infrastructure environments coming to an end? There is a degree of evidence to suggest that, for the immediate and medium term future at least, this may indeed be the case.

 

That evidence for this, to be fair, largely emerged from HP’s recent Software Universe event in
Barcelona. Since its acquisition of Mercury back in late 2006 the company is now, unsurprisingly, rather pleased to boast about its performance as a business.  According to VP Tom Hogan its growth year-on-year in the last quarter is closing in on 80 percent, and much of that is said to be down to what the Mercury acquisition has brought to the party. And this does look like a case where `the whole’ has proved to worth more than the sum of the parts.  

The earlier acquisitions of companies like Peregrine and last September’s move on Opsware, when put together with the company’s own OpenView management tools, has produced a combination of infrastructure components that seem to have struck a chord with business users. According to Ian Curtis, HP Software’s chief in the UK, the evidence for this is over 50, $1 million contracts for just infrastructure software licences in the
UK alone. 

The arrival of Opsware’s datacentre automation looks like it could extend that process and give some extra muscle to the company’s Business Technology Optimization (BTO) offering, which is now the name by which the modular suite of infrastructure tools is known. According to Ben Horowitz – now VP of BTO with HP and a co-founder of Opsware – the target is providing a full but modularised suite of operations orchestration tools. This means users should get flexibility, integrating just the tools that fit with what is already operational, to make a flexible upgrade path towards managing end-to-end business service provision. They can, of course, also go for the full enchilada.  

This was being described at Software Universe as the infrastructure management world’s equivalent of Microsoft’s Office Suite……which I suppose could be a two-edged sword.  

One factor HP is keen to press on the world is that all the companies and technologies it has recently acquired in this space were either first or second in their respective market sectors. This, in the short term at least, overcomes the common objection to buying a complete, soup-to-nuts solution where, in any individual part of the process there is a far better, best of breed solution available. HP would strenuously contend that the best of breeds are all there from one source, and with one throat to choke if it goes wrong. 

This then poses two questions. The first is how long HP thinks it can maintain its lead against all-comers? It may be spending $3.6bn on R & D, and 70 percent + of that may be going on software, but considering the fast-expanding breadth of its offerings – and not just in BTO software, either – that still spreads out a bit thin when trying to ensure that all its modules and point solutions stay at the head of their respective packs. HP is there at the moment, but making sure it stays there is going to be a major effort for the company. For some users, the future may see best of breed options becoming a lot more attractive.   

The second question, however, does imply a fundamental change that just might be taking place. Basically, is the argument between end-to-end suite and best-of-breed point solution relevant any more? With the greater focus on the words `services’ and `delivery’ that come with the interest in SOA and SaaS, do IT departments now have wider interests and responsibilities on their minds than the finer details of point solution performance? Yes, sometimes a point solution will still come along with `unavoidable’ written all over it, but that is likely to happen less often that of late – and it will only become an instant acquisition target anyway.