Future frameworks for open client-server technologies

Client-server technologies now have the price/performance capabilities to offer the only credible way of reconciling the ubiquitous desktop PC with centralised enterprise systems. They function by separating the computing processes and thereby enabling the end-user to improve customer service by optimal use of enterprise resources. This same fragmentation is breaking down established supply chains in the IT industry and blurring the boundaries between entire industries. Innovative ways are required to organise and acquire these new technologies. This report provides evidence that future frameworks will be characterised as 'value networks' in which time, distance and size differences will be irrelevant to the relationships between counterparties. Suppliers will form 'assembler' teams to ensure intra-component support. User organisations will deploy these 'assemblages' in new market-networks which enable them to leverage their core competencies by providing their customers with mediated access to an ever-widening range of goods and services.