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The Longtail of IT Governance

Open source has shown how marketplaces can thrive on doing good, but can whether the same concept be applied to IT governance? Archer Technology hopes so.
Written by Dave Greenfield, Contributor

Open source has shown how marketplaces can thrive on doing good, but can whether the same concept be applied to IT governance? Archer Technology hopes so. The risk assessment and compliance company announced Archer Exchange, an open marketplace for governance applications here at its user conference in Orlando.

Archer Exchange will rely on CIOs sharing internally developed applications running on Archer’s SmartSuite framework with other organization. SmartSuite provides policy, threat, asset, risk, incident, vendor and Sarbanes Oxley management. The technology is widely deployed across top organizations, including American Express and UMB.

Archer Exchange is an intriguing idea one that allows the company to address the long-tail of applications within the IT governance space. All too often market niches are either too targeted or just necessarily overlooked by software houses. As organizations solve those problems through internally developed SmartSuite applications, Archer hopes they’ll release those applications to the public. Each new application will be Archer certified. Nor will IT customers be the only ones developing targeted applications. Archer President and CEO Jon Darbyshire says that two full time engineers will also be developing applications for the Framework.

The company already has 48 applications available, most in the compliance and governance space though users, like UMB, have extended SmartSuite that far beyond compliance management to even manage their projects. Others SmartSuite applications go well beyond IT to include a CRM application and even event management.

In this, SmartSuite has a similarity with another application framework, albeit with an IT twist. “We’re just like Lotus Notes only easier to use,” he says, “With Notes you need a developer to build your applications. With us even you [That’s yours truly] could build an application.” Umm, gee, thanks Jon.

The question remains how CxOs will take to the marketplace. Jim Routh, Chief Information Security Officer for DTCC and the Archer User Group Chairman enthused on stage about how excited CxOs will be around the Archer Exchange. Organizations can gain battle tested applications, created by peers and even potential competitors, for deployment within their own companies at no additional cost beyond the Archer licenses.

Pretty cool stuff. But what Routh didn’t talk about was the incentive for an IT organization to contribute its intellectual property into the public domain. And while some developers will be motivated by recognition, as John Kirkwood, global information security officer at Royal Ahold, pointed out to me, I suspect most organizations will only be able to release the most insignificant applications into the public domain due to contracts and competitive interests. What do you think?

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