At the Office 2.0 Conference, I had an opportunity to watch an incredible demonstration by a company called 3Tera.

3Tera claim to be " the first grid operating system that runs and scales existing web applications".   On their platform, you can draw something that looks like visio diagram that shows firewalls, load balancers, web servers and databases.   Then, press a button and your diagram is turned into a running virtual deployment.   The 3tera grid is used to run the system.

Here's a quick snap shot.  

However, I recommend that you check out the 3tera screencast on their site.

3tera's grid, or something like it, can become the beginning of an IT platform that can support heterogeneity and thus, can support constant innovation.   If you want to install Atlassian, and I want to install SocialText, there is no reason why both tools can't be run on the same platform.

In a 3tera type grid server environment, IT does need to work out what kinds of standards they want to have in place.   The standards, however, more like communication standards.   Use Active Directory for authentication and access control.   List your system in this directory, so people can find it.   Use the hCard or hCalendar mircoformat.

But... CIO's will not look at small new vendors

Fueled by a question from Jeff Nolan on partner ecosystems, the Enterprise Irregulars have been discussing the likelihood that any given CIO will look at a solution from a start-up.

The general consensus is that CIOs are not interested in any solution from a new start-up because they want accountability from the vendor.   CIOs believe, though I am not sure this is 100% correct, that they will get better support from a large vendor.

This fear of the unknown mimics the 9X Email Problem that Andre McAfee wrote about recently.

The Business Problem

This site is dedicated to a fairly simple 3 step notion:

1. Constant innovation is required to succeed into today's hyper competitive environment.
2. Successful innovation is not about the ideas or inventions; it’s about the people.
3. If you want innovation, you have to enable your innovation creators

The problem in most Enterprise IT environments today is that innovation is only accepted when it comes from entrenched vendors.   The problem is that the entrenchment prevents innovation.  For example, it took Microsoft 4 years to update Internet Explorer.   It wasn't until they face competitive threats from Firefox that Microsoft decided to get their act in gear.

Types of Solutions

One type of solution is the partner ecosystems that Jeff Nolan asked about.

Charles Zedlewski provided the Enterprise Irregulars with one possible set of solutions:

Ken Berryman (runs McKinsey's software practice) throws out 3 analogies:

• Software industry becomes like the automotive industry with 5-9 tier 1 OEM's, then tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers tied together in long term contacts
• Software industry becomes like the pharma industry with 20-30 big pharma companies and a kajillion small innovative companies that rely on the the big guys for risk capital and access to the sales force of several thousand detailers
• Software industry becomes like the construction industry with little industry concentration and constantly re-aligning coalitions of contractors, laborers, suppliers and sub-contractors coming together on a case by case basis to build each skyscraper

The Goal for Enterprise IT

An IT platform that supports constant change, and thus constant innovation.

Maybe We Need to Outsource Some of IT

Presenting a strawman of a company - GenericEnterpriseIT.com  (GEIT)

Built on a grid, such as 3tera, you can deploy any virtual prepackaged stack.   For example, SocialText on LAMP with firewalls, load balancers, multiple virtual Apache instances.
GEIT will have many of these pre-build.   GEIT will maintain the relationships with all the vendors.   Your people can go to an internal website, press a button, and add SugarCRM to their deployment.

For SaaS vendors, GEIT will pull an Oracle, and give you blanket service contract.
The benefit for CIOs is that they have one GEIT neck to choke when something goes wrong. GEIT sets up all sorts of standards for how systems talk together, keeping everything truly SOA.

Maybe GEIT partners with Teqlo to deliver secure process mashups.

Before GEIT turns on your system, they buy you a copy of the 37 signals book, and then they make you write "Convention over configuration" 30 times on a chalkboard.

GenericEnterpriseIT.com does not exist.... yet.

Example #1 - Utilityserve

3tera's partner Utilityserve.   Here's how they describe themselves:

UtilityServe offers superior efficiency, scalability, reliability, flexibility, and ease-of-use. Automatically deploy an unlimited number of Web servers, database servers, application servers, load balancers, network interfaces, backup servers, mail servers, log servers, using a convenient drag-and-drop graphical interface. Easily back-up and restore your entire computing environment

Example #2 - EI Solutions

This isn't outsourced IT, but it is outsourced vendor relations.

Joe Nocera has an interesting article in the NY Times entitled Fewer Eggs, More Baskets in the Incubator.   The article talks about Bill Gross and IdeaLab.

It focuses on a Solar Energy company called EI Solutions.

EI Solutions installed a 1.6 MW solar array on the roof of the Goolge headquarters in Mountain View.   The energy output is 2,611,719 kWh per year.   Google expects to save $393,000 + annually, and they expect to pay off the system within 7.5 years.

EI Solutions has a pretty interesting process for getting the right solar arrays to their clients.

The part that interested me was the Source Stage.   EI doesn't have everything.   Instead, they deal with the vendor relations.   Here's what is says on their web site:

What Happens at This Stage?

When it comes to solar power systems, all components are definitely not created equal. There are a host of suppliers offering a wide variety of photovoltaic (PV) panels including monocrystalline, polycrystalline, thin-film, and others. Each of these solar technologies comes with its own characteristics, efficiencies, and costs.

What to Expect

EI Solutions will recommend specific components — including panels, inverters, mounting systems, and more — based on the particular needs of your project and its location. For example, we pay particular attention to the weather patterns at your site in order to recommend the type of solar panel technology that will provide the most energy over the course of the year at the most effective price.

The EI Solutions Difference: Wide Selection from Many Trusted Suppliers

EI Solutions has long-term relationships with many different suppliers and an intimate understanding of the specifications of each component. We work hard to build a system that's optimized for your company, your needs, and your site.

Bottom line advice for CIOs.  

Today's globally competitive market place means that your company will need to constantly innovate if they want to generate above average profits.

McKinsey has determined that 41% of business represents tacit interactions - ie knowledge work.   Knowledge work is completed using the tools on your Intranet and on your desk tops.   Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 mean that new productivity tools such as blogs and wikis are coming out all the time.   Enterprise 2.0 tools not only make you more productive, but they also increase the pace of innovation within an organization.   Big old vendors are often not the original source of the most innovative solutions (although there are always some exceptions).   Or, their solutions are half baked attempts to imitate the innovation being done in smaller, more agile companies.

If you do not want to deal with all these little vendors, copy the way that Google solved their solar energy problems, and out source the vendor relations to vendor that can take care of the vendor relationships and provide you with a grid platform that can support dynamically changing IT environment.