Is it about SaaS, utility computing etc or is it about consolidation

I took the opportunity to stand back and look at some of the major trends in IT. When I did that one thing became very obvious. All of the major hype cycles apart from the Semantic web and social networks were about consolidation.

Think about it. virtualisation, multi-tenancy, SaaS, Cloud computing, the Gdrive… Even Skype is about consolidation, they are aggregating and virtualising networks for callers, hence consolidating the telco market virtually. (as an aside my tablet recognised the word virtualised as brutalised – how ironic!!)

 
Are we really just seeing a backlash against distributed infrastructures? Is the yang of bureau computing finally evening out with the ying of distributed models? Is it the unspoken or unrealised need to get scale in a truly global market? Is it about the massively increasing complexity that IT poses. Is it that there is finally a form of outsourcing (BPO, or discrete) that can actually deliver on its TCO promises. I still hold to my opinion that SaaS is a form of outsourcing.

Probably all of the above combined with new technologies that facilitate this type of computing at an economically viable rate.

The point is that to me, the trend isn’t about SaaS or cloud computing, it is about consolidation or centralisation. Does that realisation change the game? Possibly, maybe I start thinking about the implications of the market and its related markets.