According to Merv Adrian, senior vice president, Forrester, market forces of commoditization, miniaturization (proliferating smart devices, appliances, etc.), industrialization, and globalization, along with changing buyer sentiments, will accelerate a shift in the dominant form of IT delivery by 2012 from buyers self-integrating technology to having it assembled and managed by outside providers.

Adrian further mentions that convergence of drivers such as stable operations farmed out to third parties, new IP sourced from open communities and solution brokers, emerging technologies going to market wrapped in process bundles, and new software investments based on subscription rather than ownership, will result in an IT ecosystem structure that will place those technology suppliers with the strongest delivery capabilities at the hubs.

To stay in the game, today's vendors and service providers will need to overcome their own inertia around the development and management of IP, their rigid engagement models, and their dated partnering strategies.

Inertia persists in all corners of today's IT ecosystem. Independent software vendors (ISVs) are loath to consider anything that might erode high margins, while service firms describe themselves as being in the projects business or the outsourcing business. These parties face significant risks during the change.

Software vendors face reduced license revenues, hardware manufacturers will see even more margin squeeze on their boxes, and service providers face radical changes in the way that they define their work and relationships with clients. Smart technology suppliers, service providers in particular, will recognize these perils and be the first to hurdle the remaining barriers.

The next step will be the formation of four vendor business models that will fuel a services-led industry, namely, operations consortia, component communities, process transformers, and solution brokers.

Forrester further mentions that each of today's most dominant hub vendors -- IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP -- will have to follow a distinctive and, in some cases, a very challenging strategy to thrive in a more service-driven IT ecosystem. The importance of hardware and software vendors that underpin corporate IT will be surpassed by those vendors that can provide high levels of service for the right price and then replicate that service profitably and efficiently across their customer bases.

Even though IT services spending has kept pace or outpaced growth in overall IT spending, the industry maintains a preponderance of do-it-yourself.
While product-touting vendors will line up to capitalize on this group, the four drivers, namely IT salary and benefits, IT services, Software, Computers and Telecom are too strong, as is the mindset of business-oriented buyers who increasingly want quality IT for less.