I have to admit that doing research in many of its various forms is probably what I enjoy most about my current job. Since I'm an industry analyst, that's, I suppose, a good thing. And more specifically what I enjoy about research isn't simply gathering data, but testing out ideas about how the overall IT management marketplace is evolving and seeing the difference (and or similarities) between what I anticipated and what turns out to be "real."

To be honest, I enjoy finding out the truth either way - no point investing in perspectives that are either wrong or so far ahead of the market as to be of minimal interest. But of course, I enjoy it more when it seems like we at EMA are "on to something."

And that would appear to be the case for a report (and an online Solutions Guide that should be completed by end of summer) on what we call "Next-Generation Asset Management" (NGAM). Virtually all of the data is in, and what remains are tuning perspectives on a wide range of companies that have been generous with their time in answering questions about "asset management" that go far beyond traditional ways of thinking about asset management.

The general notion of NGAM is that it represents the gradual convergence of asset management and service management. The logic of this is that services are the end "products" and hence the "ultimate assets" for any IT organization. Therefore, all components (infrastructure, operational costs, contracts for outsourced services) ultimately have to be understood in parent-child fashion as they map to the services they support. Another concept that's closely related is that NGAM reflects capabilities to understand assets in terms of performance and contribution and not merely as static entities that simply go through life cycle procurement to retirement with a passing nod to TCO.

Of course doing all this goes far beyond traditional tools and traditional organizational models. It's more like ITIL's notion of "Financial Management for IT Services," and will require new organizational, process and even political models for it to fully come of age within IT. Integration is also a key requirement if asset management is to evolve towards NGAM. We asked vendors specifically about: CMDB support and integration with capacity, change, service management, and service accounting or chargeback. Dynamic awareness of the real environment is important, as well, so we also asked about inventory and discovery.

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.