For a long time, organizations have viewed their information systems as proprietary. This means that they developed systems in house running on their own hardware. In other words, managing IT meant managing both the systems and the underlying infrastructure. Over time, as they developed and maintained various systems, the underlying infrastructure became a mix of sometimes incompatible systems that are dispersed throughout various organizational units.
Organizations have begun to recognize the need to simplify infrastructure focusing on common platforms. One approach is the "Software as Service" model where organizations buy services such as order processing or customer management rather than developing systems in house. This is often considered part of what has been termed "Cloud Computing".
How do software services and cloud computing change the way that organizations view their IT infrastructure and IT investments?