Technology landscape [OCLC]

Major trends

The patterns2 surfacing in the technology and information architecture landscape suggest we are headed into a period of technology change that may be as significant as the shift from mainframe architectures to client/server architectures in the 1980s. Whereas PCs and client/server software made it possible to distribute both applications and data closer to their users in the 1980s, the next-generation technology architecture will distribute even smaller units of software over the Internet directly to distant users as well as directly to devices and objects such as equipment on the factory floor, packages on store shelves or servers and hardware devices in a partner organization. Using sophisticated messaging, open-source solutions and new security protocols, data processing and information exchange will become tightly connected to business processes, facilitating new kinds of collaboration, partnering and outsourcing relationships.

The individual movements that are fueling this next-generation architecture scenario have been percolating for some time. The unprecedented spread of data exchange standards like TCP/IP, XML and MP3, and broad access to nonproprietary networking and data communications infrastructure (the Internet) have supported rising technology waves and strong development undercurrents. Many experts say that the combination of new standards, distributed software and a worldwide Internet infrastructure will create a profoundly new technology architecture landscape within the next five years.

We identified the rapid adoption of collaboration technologies earlier in this document. In this section we will explore four additional aspects of this technology landscape that will likely impact information creation, dissemination and management. We will conclude by providing a framework for analyzing some of the specific applications, technologies and standards that will be the building components of this new environment.