MIS looks to integrate; business complexities reflected in systems

Software Magazine, May, 1988 by Ed Bride

MIS Looks To Integrate

Does technology (a) lead business trends or (b) follow them? The answer is (c) both, according to myriad signals from Adapso, the Computer Software and Services Industry Association.

But if you believe William Hoover, technology has facilitated the trend toward multinational, complex businesses. And computer systems have become so complex that Hoover's company, Computer Sciences Corp., has built a billion-dollar business out of integrating hardware, software and networking protocols into total solutions for users.

Hoover, the chairman and president of CSC, told Adapso's Spring management meeting that $10 billion of "identified contracts" for systems integration will be awarded by the federal government over the next two years. The commercial sector is slower to recognize the benefits of "total solutions," i.e., a complete system from a single vendor, even if that is a third-party systems integrator, perhaps because they would rather do it themselves, he suggested.

But CSC intends to grow its commercial business from 30% to 40%, and derive half of its profits from that sector, he told some 700 software and services executives at the Palm Sprins, Calif., meeting.

During the meeting, Adapson began to organize a formal structure to represent systems integrators, whose business totalled $7.4 billion in 1986, the last year for which figures are available.

Mary Rich, a consultant based in El Segundo, Calif., said Systems Integration is simply a new name for Facilities Management. The only thing that facilities management firms in the 1950s weren't doing, but which today's systems integrators are, suggested, is the integration of networking components.

Adapso, whose title formerly stood for the "Association of Data Processing Service Organization," agrees with Hoover and other speakers that integration represents the opportunity for tomorrow.

The service companies of tomorrow will make more contributions in integrating systems, Hoover indicated, rather than custom programming or service bureaus, which provided the genesis of Adapso. The association's membership includes some 900 software products vendors, service bureaus, professional services firms and network-based service providers.

"Out ability to provide cost-effective solutions with dependable systems that meet our customers' complex needs will shape our individual roles," Hoover said.

In another session, M. Dendy Young, president of Falcon Systems Inc., which sells systems integration services to the federal government, predicted that by 1995, hardware "will be given away to get the services business." He said the professional services business of yesterday is becoming obsolete, and will be used more and more to tie disparate elements together.

SYSTEMS INTEGRATION EMERGES

System integration is emerging because relatively autonomous, standalone enterprises of the 1940s "have transformed into today's worldwide, interdependent organizations," Hoover remarked. This change gave rise to a rapid growth in demand for complete, accurate and timely information, delivered with "absolute reliability."

Regardless of whether users obtain integration from a third-party vendor or from within their own shops, the process demands an engineering approach, including integration methodologies, Hoover said. The process had its origin in the aerospace industry in the 1950s, with the trend to increasingly complex missiles, weapons and space systems, he noted.

The commercial market has lagged in procuring systems in this manner, but Hoover said there have been "several major system buys" over the last few years, adding it is too early to verify a major trend. If the industry performs well in these procurements, this will "establish the validity of the approach," and commercial demand will grow.

The challenge is not really in technology, but in project management, Hoover belives. "A good software manager isn't necessarily a good manager for a systems integration project," he added.

But software is the key to the problem-solving process, Hoover also said. "It is also usually the element of greatest risk" because of the increasingly difficulty in predicting cost, performance and delivery.

The use of standard products in total system has lessened the risk, and CSC is inventing less and less in the projects it implements, Hoover reported.

But he also cautioned his audience to use fourth-generation languages "discriminately" in complex systems, or performance will not be what was expected.

The reference to 4GLs concerned an example of the state of New Jersey, whose motor vehicle registration system was brought to its knees because the systems integrator rushed to the quickest implementation, a 4GL, without adequately benchmarking performance, sources explained.