Tech Horizons: ServicePilot Technologies And The Commoditization Of Infrastructure Monitoring

As networking technology progressed in spectacular fashion, the technological sophistication of service provider networks were a prime market for a slew of network and system management innovators like Aprisma, Concord, InfoVista, Micromuse, Quallaby, and Smarts. Substantial revenues in license and maintenance fees attracted the inevitable consolidation with larger IT management software vendors like CA and IBM. But the knowledge accumulated in almost two decades of IT infrastructure monitoring has now come to challenge these large vendors: The typical feature/function differentiation of these solutions has eroded, and infrastructure monitoring is no longer "rocket science" available to only a few engineers. Typically, this now widespread technological knowledge signals that this market is about to "commoditize" and that new and more agile challengers can develop and offer a credible alternative at a lower price point. This study uses one of these challengers, ServicePilot Technologies, as an example of how alternative solutions to the large vendors can effectively play a role in the IT management software market.