...something as a Service

I'm getting a bit frustrated now. The reason being - service providers. Two years ago on early days of Saas, nobody really knew what it really entails. It was another one of the keywords to whisper in every seminar / conference / private event... Hype, I would call it. Not the Software-as-a-Service itself, but the way it was adopted. Big players took on the vision, quantified it somehow and it was delivered as part of the Cloud Computing offering. One should ask where the term xxx-as-a-Service comes from. Mostly it developed from BS- and ITIL-ised way of thinking - treat everything your IT has to offer as service provision. To achieve that you need to define all the services on offer. Happy with it? Good.

What has emerged now, is the thingy-as-a-Service culture from the major service providers. Everything can be offered as a service (no news here!) and apparently should be defined respectively. Just came across EMC2 eBook that used term ITaaS (IT as a Service). What a loads of BS! IT has been treated as a service since ITIL was introduced! Or should I say - this is the way it should be perceived. IT as non-service dates back to 90's where Helpdesk was hot topic and web-based solutions were not conceived yet. IT-as-a-Service means nothing more than OUTSOURCED or mixed IS/IT service.

What the service providers should do is generate a service catalogue and include all the relevant serviced and offerings in it. Infrastructure, software and business services. Allow your customers to pick and choose what is required to enable their business to function and thrive. Simple managed services provision is not enough any more, service providers need to offer more to their customers. And the asking price should be fair,not subsidising other areas of interest.

I do hope to see some clarification in the marketplace where service providers try not to offer all IT services, but only the ones where they excel.