Having come most recently from the business process management (BPM), business process execution language (BPEL), service-oriented architecture, and infrastructure space, this post by Phil Windley caught my eye. Phil's post is great because he provides an executive blog post summary for Geoffrey Moore's audiocast, plus Phil has dug up some slides for the talk that were not conveniently located with the audio.

To be frank though, I'm still trying to get the full appreciation for what Moore is talking about that is new. Moore refers to "systems of record", which from my point of view are essentially IT capabilities and data that affect the core economics of a business (note that Moore technical cites four characteristics of scope, clout, value, and intertia, but I boiled it down to one). ERP (enterprise resource planning) is cited as the quintessential system of record, with three other systems being (as summarized by Phil):

• CRM - the customer system of record
• SCM - the supplier system of record
• PLM - the product system of record

Moore goes on to talk about "orchestrating the stack" as being where the action will be in the coming decade. I gather that this was Moore's real focus. But on the surface, this appears to part an parcel with discussions that have already been going on with BPM, SOA, web services, and orchestration as mixed with the age-old discussions about what system stewards what process and what data.

In any case, Moore's framework is an interesting way to think about things. Upon further reflection, I suppose what is new about Moore's view is that it combines both the microdetails on what's going on with SOA with the macroeconomics of what is going on in the software industry as a whole (and what may be possible). I will be sure to try to keep my eyes open to thinking about things in this frame.

Steve Shu