IT services will assume the role of regular services companies such as Eskom or Telkom. Companies will use the service without having the least idea of the technology being implemented to generate the information. These revolutionary ideas are being promoted by Sun Microsystems, among the top technology companies world-ide and creator of Java software, said Sun South Africa s managing director Stefano Mattillo. He claims IT services would be similar to electricity and telephone services. Nobody needs to knows how to generate electricity to use it.
Companies buy technology to retrieve information.
In truth they only need the best information and need not necessarily know which technology generates the information. Mattillo maintains by 2006 companies would be in a position to hire office space and specify their requirements, including a telephone system, electricity and comprehensive business system comprising accounting information over the company s financial position, information over the call centre, purchases, stock and many other business aspects. A service provider would supply the services without the company being aware of the technology being implemented. In terms of the current model companies do not specify who installs their electricity or telephone systems, but they indicate the software they require such as for example, SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle to provide their business information. Mattillo notes the technology currently available is much too complicated for end users and existing IT technology can only be simplified if it is replaced by the above mentioned information-driven model.