Six IT power moves of '06

How a handful of the year’s biggest moves by enterprises and vendors will play out in 2007

From start to finish, 2006 was filled with one sort of power move after another.

As expected, we saw enterprise IT executives bolster their technology infrastructures by ripping out the old and bringing in the new and, presumably, more powerful. We saw Cisco, Microsoft, VMware and scores of other vendors fortifying their product strategies and reaching into new markets, often by acquisition. And we watched standards bodies, regulatory and other governmental agencies, and various corporate entities assert themselves on IT issues.

Here we look at how six such power moves, by enterprises and vendors alike, will play out in 2007.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

From start to finish, 2006 was filled with one sort of power move after another.

As expected, we saw enterprise IT executives bolster their technology infrastructures by ripping out the old and bringing in the new and, presumably, more powerful. We saw Cisco, Microsoft, VMware and scores of other vendors fortifying their product strategies and reaching into new markets, often by acquisition. And we watched standards bodies, regulatory and other governmental agencies, and various corporate entities assert themselves on IT issues.

Here we look at how six such power moves, by enterprises and vendors alike, will play out in 2007.

Texas university powers up with open source

This year, network executives at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) made one of the most powerful decisions an enterprise IT buyer can make -- to oust a legacy vendor in favor of an open source competitor. The university began moving its 6,000 students, faculty and staff from Cisco CallManager IP PBXs and a Nortel Meridian PBX to Linux servers running Asterisk, which includes call-processing, voice mail and public-network gateway functionality.

This open source move lets SHSU operate its Cisco IP phones with more flexibility and at one-third the price, says Aaron Daniel, senior voice analyst at the Huntsville, Texas, school. While the open source alternative requires more on-site development expertise, Daniel says the tradeoff is worth it.

"The open source community has been an invaluable resource, but when it comes down to it, if you have competent developers, you can fix open source yourself, and support becomes less of an issue," Daniel says. He also says the capabilities in products such as Asterisk should serve as a bellwether for vendors such as Cisco.

"From where I am sitting, it looks like closed-source solutions providers are starting to shake in their boots," Daniel says. "If they don't change their tune with practices and pricing, they are going to fall behind. Open source is here, it's gaining steam and it's happening in enterprise-grade deployments."