Let us elaborate some loose ideas on a fresher notion of
“software modernization”. In the sequel, we are reviewing the notion of
software migration as a modernization path and we want to look it through the
glass of other contextual elements and events around the IT world which have
evolved during the last 2-3 years. Such elements give us a reason to identify
forces and opportunities on innovation and possible new developments. Let’s
assume, we now have focused more on an implementation oriented modernization;
namely one that is mainly concerned with programming languages,
frameworks, platforms, architectures and the like those have being prevailing
during the last years.
From a technical point of view, we are aware this implementation
based notion is completely valid and will exist for a while as such because still
useful legacy systems are forced to evolve at the implementation level while retaining
as much as possible its original functionality and corresponding business
value, at a reasonable cost. However, we also are aware that the environment
where ISs serve and survive is so strongly evolving in such a way that
implementation details are probably remaining that important only at a
traditional IT/IS level and vision. What kind of environment and forces are
these making pressures on that vision? Is there an opportunity there for
migration?
One important phenomena is definitively the Web 2.0 and, in
analogy to how Internet forced Intranets, Andrew McAfee has recently coined the
Enterprise 2.0 concept which embodies those well-known effects the Web 2.0 as
an ubiquitous trend, as a social movement and how those might be pushing on at the
inside of the IT enterprise nowadays; and as a direct consequence at the kind
of tools employees might be willing
and needing in their regular work environment; those where new information
requirements born faster than they can be incorporated as new features at the
traditional IS platform. Whether so-called Web 2.0 tools will be improving
employee productivity is probably an open and debatable question, no doubt
about it. We still remember not too long ago how e-mail and Internet at the
work was considered as a disturbance source per se.
True is also, however, that being able to search, analyze, discover,
tag, publish, share and trace knowledge at the rhythm of the business and own personal
information needs has become now more important than ever. And traditionally designed
ISs could be becoming a factor contributing to a sort of impedance mismatch
between the huge flexibility and freedom that persons might currently encounter
on the Web (even in private personal milieu) and a rigid traditional IS
platform at the work-place. And, we emphasize, this concern occurs independently
of whether or not such IS platform is “modern” at the implementation level
which is another different dimension of the matter.
As Dion Hinchcliffe entitles, Enterprise 2.0 is a cultural
catalyst (as Web 2.0 is being); we believe and interpret it as a realistic vision
where, more soon than later, ISs will be judged in terms of McAfee’s SLATES
criteria and this will entail a rather stronger force leading to modernization of
higher–level then than the technical one, because such criteria are more
closely related social, common-sense, better understood forces not so directly
related with technical issues.
If such a vision is accepted as a legitimate opportunity, we might
then be looking for spaces for innovation now when we are considering moving to
the next levels of automated supported migration. In such a case we have to consider migration as a
path enabling ISs (not just legacy ones) to evolve into direction Enterprise 2.0-like modernization
as a well-defined strategy.