Third platform

Last updated

The third platform [1] [2] is a term coined by marketing firm International Data Corporation (IDC) for a model of a computing platform. It was promoted as inter-dependencies between mobile computing, social media, cloud computing, and information / analytics (big data), [3] [4] [5] and possibly the Internet of things. [6] The term was in use in 2013, and possibly earlier. Gartner claimed that these interdependent trends were "transforming the way people and businesses relate to technology" and have since provided a number of reports on the topic. [7]

Contents

Platforms

The paradigm of numbered platforms sees several platforms evolving, the first platform as the mainframe computer system.

First Platform

First Platform:
A pair of IBM mainframes. On the left is the IBM z Systems z13. On the right is the IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper. IBM z13 and LinuxONE Rockhopper.jpg
First Platform:
A pair of IBM mainframes. On the left is the IBM z Systems z13. On the right is the IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper.

First Platform (Mainframe) - late 1950s to present

The first platform is the mainframe computer system, which began in the late 1950s and continues today.

Second Platform

Second Platform:
A computer network diagram of clients communicating with a server via the Internet. Client-server-model.svg
Second Platform:
A computer network diagram of clients communicating with a server via the Internet.

Second Platform (Client/Server) - mid 1980s to present

The second platform is the client/server system, which began in the mid-1980s with PCs tapping into mainframe databases and applications. [8]

Third Platform

Third Platform:
A Facebook page on a mobile device. A serviceman accesses social media channels using a smart phone, outside MOD Main Building in London MOD 45156045.jpg
Third Platform:
A Facebook page on a mobile device.

Third Platform (Social, Mobile, Cloud & Analytics, possibly IoT) - early 2010s to present

The Open Platform 3.0 initiative of The Open Group aims to produce a consensus definition of the third platform, and to identify open standards for it, in order to help enterprises gain business benefit from these technologies. This has produced an analysis of requirements. [9]

In January 2016 The Economist offered the following analysis: "The third platform is based on the online computing "cloud" and its interaction with all manner of devices, including wirelessly connected ones such as smartphones, machinery and sensors (known collectively as the "internet of things"). [10]

Fourth Platform

Fourth Platform - despite the term being used by some consultants and IT companies, there is no clear consensus on a definition. Discussions around the fourth platform are currently mostly predictions about what it might include - such as AI, IoT, Quantum Computing and massively distributed Grid computing approaches.

Implementations

No single "third platform" product has emerged, but there are a number of proprietary and free software products that enterprises can use to create, deploy and operate solutions that use third platform technologies. Within an enterprise, a combination of these products that meet enterprise needs is a "third platform" for that enterprise. Its design can be considered part of Enterprise Architecture.

Suitable products include:

Enterprise third platforms can use web APIs to access social media websites and cloud services giving access to third platform technologies.

The Pillars of the Third Platform

Social technology

Gartner defined a social technology as, “Any technology that facilitates social interactions and is enabled by a communications capability, such as the Internet or a mobile device.” This extends not only to social media but also to all social technologies that make social interaction possible. A VoIP service, for example, would be considered a social technology.

In a trend that has been described as ‘social everything’, companies both big and small, will continue to inject a social element into every product and service. The cloud provides the infrastructure that makes the information accessible, the social technology helps to organise the data and facilitate access, and the mobile devices will provide the means by which most people receive the data. [11]

Mobile devices

The third platform is designed to give everybody access to big data via mobile devices; it is this mobility that really defines the third platform. A company representative on the road or working from home will have instant access to data through his or her mobile device with this third platform whenever and wherever they need it.

An example of the use of mobile devices in the third platform would be a school that gives every student a tablet. The tablet would take the place of textbooks and paper used in assignments, but more importantly, the student will have access to a virtual classroom at additional times. [11]

Analytics (big data)

The concept behind big data is to maximize the utility of all data. An executive at a company that streamlines its business functions with the third platform would have easy access to all of the data, including sales figures, personnel information, accounting data, financials and so on. This data can then be used to inform more areas of the business.

Big data can be further differentiated once we analyze its three distinguishing features: variety, volume, and velocity.

Variety means that many forms of data are collected, with formats ranging from audio and video to client log files and Tweets. Volume represents the fact that big data must come in massive quantities, often over a petabyte. Finally, Velocity signifies that big data must be constantly collected for maximum effectiveness; even data that is a few days old is not ideal.

In summary, big data utilizes and collects all forms of data, gathered from both traditional and digital sources, in order to complement a company's decision-making processes. [11]

Cloud services

Cloud services are at the heart of the third platform. Having big data and mobile devices is one thing, but without the cloud, there will be no way to access this data from outside of the office.

This differs greatly from the first platform, where computer networks consisted of large mainframes. All of a company's employees had access to the data in the mainframe but they could only access it through their desktop computers. In the second platform, a company's employees could access the data in the mainframe as well as outside data, via an Internet connection.

The third platform will allow all of a company's IT solutions to be available through the cloud, accessible via a variety of mobile devices. Data storage, servers and many IT solutions, which are on-site, can now be cloud-based. [11]

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is the network of connected devices that enable computer systems to monitor and control aspects of the physical environment. It has applications in personal and home environments, smart cities, factory automation, transport, and many other areas. The incorporation of the Internet of Things in the third platform gives enterprises the ability to interact with these systems and use these applications.

Sensors and actuators have been used in computer systems for many years. It is the ability to connect to such devices anywhere in the world through the Internet that characterizes the Internet of things.

Alternate Names

Related Research Articles

A management information system (MIS) is an information system used for decision-making, and for the coordination, control, analysis, and visualization of information in an organization. The study of the management information systems involves people, processes and technology in an organizational context. In other words, it serves, as the functions of controlling, planning, decision making in the management level setting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Information and communications technology</span> Extensional term for information technology

Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications and computers, as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage and audiovisual, that enable users to access, store, transmit, understand and manipulate information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edge computing</span> Distributed computing paradigm

Edge computing is a distributed computing model that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data. More broadly, it refers to any design that pushes computation physically closer to a user, so as to reduce the latency compared to when an application runs on a centralized data centre.

Consumerization is the reorientation of product and service designs to focus on the end user as an individual consumer, in contrast with an earlier era of only organization-oriented offerings. Technologies whose first commercialization was at the inter-organization level thus have potential for later consumerization. The emergence of the individual consumer as the primary driver of product and service design is most commonly associated with the IT industry, as large business and government organizations dominated the early decades of computer usage and development. Thus the microcomputer revolution, in which electronic computing moved from exclusively enterprise and government use to include personal computing, is a cardinal example of consumerization. But many technology-based products, such as calculators and mobile phones, have also had their origins in business markets, and only over time did they become dominated by high-volume consumer usage, as these products commoditized and prices fell. An example of enterprise software that became consumer software is optical character recognition software, which originated with banks and postal systems but eventually became personal productivity software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cloud computing</span> Form of shared internet-based computing

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multiple locations, each of which is a data center. Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and typically uses a pay-as-you-go model, which can help in reducing capital expenses but may also lead to unexpected operating expenses for users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samsung SDS</span> South Korean IT company and subsidiary of Samsung Group

Samsung SDS Co., Ltd., Established in 1985 as a subsidiary of Samsung Group, is a provider of Information Technology (IT) services, including consulting, technical, and outsourcing services. SDS is also active in research and development of emerging IT technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT) and outsourcing in engineering. In 2019, Samsung SDS reported a net profit of 750.4 billion won, an increase of 17.5% year-on-year. The company is estimated to have the 11th most valuable brand among global IT service companies, at US$3.7 billion as of January 2020. Samsung SDS has headquarters in South Korea and eight other overseas subsidiaries, one in America, Asia-Pacific, China, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, India, and Vietnam.

Network intelligence (NI) is a technology that builds on the concepts and capabilities of deep packet inspection (DPI), packet capture and business intelligence (BI). It examines, in real time, IP data packets that cross communications networks by identifying the protocols used and extracting packet content and metadata for rapid analysis of data relationships and communications patterns. Also, sometimes referred to as Network Acceleration or piracy.

Cloud communications are Internet-based voice and data communications where telecommunications applications, switching and storage are hosted by a third-party outside of the organization using them, and they are accessed over the public Internet. Cloud services is a broad term, referring primarily to data-center-hosted services that are run and accessed over an Internet infrastructure. Until recently, these services have been data-centric, but with the evolution of VoIP, voice has become part of the cloud phenomenon. Cloud telephony refers specifically to voice services and more specifically the replacement of conventional business telephone equipment, such as a private branch exchange (PBX), with third-party VoIP service.

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is the combination of cloud computing and mobile computing to bring rich computational resources to mobile users, network operators, as well as cloud computing providers. The ultimate goal of MCC is to enable execution of rich mobile applications on a plethora of mobile devices, with a rich user experience. MCC provides business opportunities for mobile network operators as well as cloud providers. More comprehensively, MCC can be defined as "a rich mobile computing technology that leverages unified elastic resources of varied clouds and network technologies toward unrestricted functionality, storage, and mobility to serve a multitude of mobile devices anywhere, anytime through the channel of Ethernet or Internet regardless of heterogeneous environments and platforms based on the pay-as-you-use principle."

A mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) is a suite of products and services that enable the development of mobile applications. The term was coined in a Gartner Magic Quadrant report in 2008 when they renamed their "multichannel access gateway market".

Mobile application management (MAM) describes the software and services responsible for provisioning and controlling access to internally developed and commercially available mobile apps used in business settings, on both company-provided and 'bring your own' mobile operating systems as used on smartphones and tablet computers.

Cloud collaboration is a method of sharing and co-authoring computer files via cloud computing, whereby documents are uploaded to a central "cloud" for storage, where they can then be accessed by other users. Cloud collaboration technologies allow users to upload, comment and collaborate on documents and even amend the document itself, evolving the document. Businesses in the last few years have increasingly been switching to use of cloud collaboration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Post-PC era</span> Market trend

The post-PC era was a market trend observed during the late 2000s and early 2010s involving a decline in the sales of personal computers (PCs) in favor of post-PC devices; which include mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers as well as other mobile computers such as wearable and ubiquitous ones. These devices emphasize portability and connectivity, including the use of cloud-based services, more focused "apps" to perform tasks, and the ability to synchronize information between multiple devices seamlessly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet area network</span> Type of large-scale computer network

An Internet area network (IAN) is a concept for a communications network that connects voice and data endpoints within a cloud environment over IP, replacing an existing local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN) or the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

Computation offloading is the transfer of resource intensive computational tasks to a separate processor, such as a hardware accelerator, or an external platform, such as a cluster, grid, or a cloud. Offloading to a coprocessor can be used to accelerate applications including: image rendering and mathematical calculations. Offloading computing to an external platform over a network can provide computing power and overcome hardware limitations of a device, such as limited computational power, storage, and energy.

"X as a service" is a phrasal template for any business model in which a product use is offered as a subscription-based service rather than as an artifact owned and maintained by the customer. Originating from the software as a service concept that appeared in the 2010s with the advent of cloud computing, the template has expanded to numerous offerings in the field of information technology and beyond it. The term XaaS can mean "anything as a service".

BlueTalon, Inc. was a private enterprise software company that provides data-centric security, user access control, data masking, and auditing solutions for complex, hybrid data environments. BlueTalon was founded in 2013 by Pratik Verma and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

SAP Cloud Platform has been rebranded as SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP).

The industrial internet of things (IIoT) refers to interconnected sensors, instruments, and other devices networked together with computers' industrial applications, including manufacturing and energy management. This connectivity allows for data collection, exchange, and analysis, potentially facilitating improvements in productivity and efficiency as well as other economic benefits. The IIoT is an evolution of a distributed control system (DCS) that allows for a higher degree of automation by using cloud computing to refine and optimize the process controls.

A secure access service edge (SASE) is technology used to deliver wide area network (WAN) and security controls as a cloud computing service directly to the source of connection rather than a data center. It uses cloud and edge computing technologies to reduce the latency that results from backhauling all WAN traffic over long distances to one or a few corporate data centers, due to the increased movement off-premises of dispersed users and their applications. This also helps organizations support dispersed users and their devices with digital transformation and application modernization initiatives.

References

  1. "'Third platform' shift triggers enterprise software evolution". ZDNet. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  2. "EMC World 2013: EMC hails rise of third platform apps". IT PRO. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  3. Golden, Bernard (27 March 2014). "As IDC Sees It, Tech's 'Third Platform' Disrupts Everyone" . Retrieved 2015-09-26.
  4. http://www.idc.com/research/Predictions13/downloadable/238044.pdf IDC Predictions 2013: Competing on the 3rd Platform
  5. http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/mmvxzk/global_third Research and Markets Report: Global Third Platform Market 2012-2016
  6. https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/catalog/R130 Convergent Technologies Survey: The Open Group, 2013
  7. The Nexus of Forces: Social, Mobile, Cloud and Information
  8. "Defining the Third IT Platform: Key 2014 Trends Identified by IDC" . Retrieved 2015-09-26.
  9. https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/catalog/K130 Open Platform 3.0 Business Scenario: The Open Group, 2013
  10. "Tech pundits' tenuous but intriguing prognostications about 2016 and beyond". The Economist. ISSN   0013-0613 . Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  11. 1 2 3 4 "What is the Third Platform?". blog.commander.com. Retrieved 2015-09-26.
  12. http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/rl/en/rlw03031usen/RLW03031USEN.PDF? [ dead link ]
  13. "IDC - 3rd Platform". www.idc.com. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  14. "A New Generation of Data Requires Next-Generation Systems". WIRED. 14 January 2015. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  15. "Cloud Computing: Business Move to the 'Third Platform' — the Nexus of Forces | Formtek Blog". formtek.com. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  16. "The next information revolution will happen in 2016 - are you ready?". TechRadar. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  17. "SMAC". eaminsights.com. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  18. "Supply Chain Management:Impact of SMAC on Enterprise Software Applications". www.infosysblogs.com. Retrieved 2016-01-01.