In planning for next year's research, it occurred to me once again that network management isn't what it used to be. That isn't to say that network management is less than what it was - but that it's different and that the differences between past and future are becoming more and more fundamental. And while I've written on this topic before in different ways, this year's outlook required a few gasps and head scratches more than in the past.

In this column, I've decided to look at network management from the perspective of the "platform" vendors (platforms that once might have been frameworks) and am including (alphabetically) BMC, CA, HP and IBM. Aside from all having letters in the first half of the alphabet, curiously, all these vendors have other things in common: they have significant investments in other management areas but have made clear and specific commitments to network management. They are also trying to reconcile network management investments and technologies within a broader management portfolio. This distinguishes them from other prominent network management vendors that are not, for instance, trying to do software distribution to the desktop, or offer in depth capabilities for systems management. As a group, these vendors are encountering a series of unique and often common challenges with somewhat shared grounds for confusion.

One of the most obvious places is in the area of mergers and acquisitions. CA's acquisition of Concord (which acquired Aprisma) and IBM's acquisition of Micromuse have led to fundamental changes to CA's and IBM's portfolios. BMC is looking to leverage Atrium and the CMDB as a way of integrating with network management solutions, and years before made an acquisition - Perform SA. However, CA and IBM are looking to leverage their network management investments more creatively, both for analytics and discovery and for service management capabilities.

HP has long been pervasive in network management, but in recent years has invested in network configuration management through its OEM with Voyence, in route analytics through its OEM with Packet Design, and is actively integrating Performance Insight (from a not so terribly old acquisition of Trinagy).

Having looked at the common issues and opportunities across this group, I'm going to present a few initial observations:

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.