Business Scenario: Open Platform 3.0™
Management Summary
The convergence and mutual reinforcement of technical phenomena such as social media, mobility, cloud computing, big data analysis, and the Internet of things is predicted to drive growth in spending on Information Technology (IT) in the years through to 2020. Enterprises will use these technologies in new business models, but they are disruptive of established IT practices.
The Open Platform 3.0™ Forum has been established to help enterprises to use these technologies, by identifying a set of new platform capabilities, and architecting and standardizing an IT platform by which enterprises can reap their business benefits. This will advance The Open Group vision of Boundaryless Information Flow™.
A standard platform will enable users to use the combination of these technologies effectively and at low cost, and will give vendors a worthwhile market. It is, however, not clear what form that platform should take. It is the purpose of this Business Scenario to develop an understanding of the business and technical environment, and describe the fundamental requirements of the new platform. It does this by following the Business Scenario approach described in the TOGAF® Standard [TOGAF].
The platform should enable enterprises to create, evolve, adopt, and use solutions based on current and future emerging technologies to achieve business value. It should do this in a business environment in which end users access the technologies directly and develop innovative business solutions.
Following discussion of the business and technical environment, and of the human and technology actors involved, the Business Scenario states an initial set of requirements for the platform. There will be other requirements input, and the set of requirements will evolve as the platform develops.
The Open Platform 3.0 Forum will proceed to define the platform to satisfy the requirements as they evolve. (This Business Scenario is part of its context, but does not define its charter.) The Forum aims to produce a Snapshot definition early in 2014, and Version 1 of the Technical Standard definition a year later.