...Or getting matrixed?

Not everyone agrees that service-oriented IT isenablinga clear and swift shift from vertical to horizontal value creation. BTL's Dan Farber contends that "we are entering a phase in which a few companies will rule enterprise computing, each with a suite of pre-integrated functionality that promises to dramatically reduce integration and administration costs. Cisco, IBM, HP, Oracle, SAP, Sun, and others, are leading the move toward more integration...It's not exactly horizontal or vertical."

Farber mentions his interview withJoe Tucci, CEO of EMC, who contends we are actually engaged in an ongoing process ofmatrixed integration. "We've figured out some of the complexity," Tucci said. "It's not vertical or horizontal stripes--it's both."

Which leads me to believe that "horizontal" is more atrajectory than an endpoint -- a goal one might pursue but never truly reach. The messy marketplace reality is, in fact,verti-zontal value creation. We currently may bedrifting away from rigid, vertical,heirarchy toward flexible, horizontal,flatness -- in economics, organization and IT. But you can be certain we'll drift right back eventually.