What has become increasingly apparent to me is how clueless I have become about the rapidly changing computing platforms of the day. I have just finished reading a fascinating analysis by Marc Andreessen on the new Facebook platform (fellow Irregular Jason Wood also does a pretty good job on the topic,) which discusses how Facebook will ultimately be set up for big enterprise uses.

Read this analysis. It is very important.

This is not just a singular phenomenon. It is spreading and growing very rapidly from a variety of different perspectives and venues. Like Facebook, there are many new platforms such as Amazon Web Services and WebEx Connect to choose from. In addition, virtual reality sites like Second Life where large companies like IBM and Toyota are setting up shop as well as crowdsourcing sites like yet2.com for outsourced R&D are creating new opportunities and ways to improve current business processes. The irony is that these sites merely scratch the surface of what is being done in a world where start up costs are going down to next to nothing and where yesterday's idea can become tomorrow's next big thing.

By the way, I'm not including the traditional hot-button vendors of Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle and Salesforce.com (MISO+S) in this batch as everyone understands their approaches and gizmos way too much. They may get the money today but in many ways they are not capturing the intellectual and creative growth that is occurring on the fringes and exploding in the market on almost a daily basis.

The growth of MISO+S is predicated on spending lots on money using a traditional enterprise software business model. And many of us agree that the current model is broken and needs to be fixed. And unlike non-MISO+S platforms, where people and companies swarm to them with passion (via pull), the traditional platforms must be painfully maintained and managed (via push.) See my piece on push vs. pull.

Thus when common wisdom states that best of breed is dead, I have to laugh. It is not dead but is flourishing and multiplying under the monikers of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, social software, software as a service, outsourcing, etc. In fact, the diversity of solutions and approaches that buyers can tap today to solve any given challenge are more rather than less in number. There are more companies in the market today doing interesting things using a wide variety of disruptive technologies and business models than ever I can remember in my 25 years plus in the software industry.

But I can see how the consolidation perspective and bias can grab hold if all you are thinking about comprises standard HR, CRM, ERP, etc. functionality.

Boring!!!!!

If that's your perspective, then just think about how to drive down the cost of (mostly) commodity functions in a commodity space. And like all tech commodities (hardware, operating systems, database, etc,) these functions will be supported by just a couple of big sellers.

I have to both smile and groan when I start to review these changes in the context of my own professional life. I am reminded of experiences nearly 20 years ago when as a young analyst I was among the so-called vanguard talking about how client-server computing, relational database, PCs, Unix, packaged applications etc. would upset the corporate apple cart of mainframe computing and home-built applications.

At the time, the Gartner analysis stronghold was mainframe computing (representing over 40 percent of all revenue, though quickly dropping as a percentage of the total) and was run by a small group of white-male, country-club, golf-playing, gin-guzzling, IBM veterans. In their checkered slacks and white belts (and often shoes), they would scoff at how new things would challenge the old.

"My nose hairs will catch on fire before Windows will be used for corporate computing," yelled one of the mainframers during one of our Friday afternoon research meetings.

When I look at how many of the current research firms (Gartner, Forrester, AMR Research, etc.) as well as industry leaders (SAP, Oracle, etc.) are considering these new technologies I see a similar wardrobe and world view. When you look at surveys in CIO Magazine, Information Week, etc. they express a similar theme and perspective. Smart guys like Babson's Tom Davenport dismiss the newer approaches as nothing special or new. The trouble for all of these different groups is that they CANNOT see a different future without accepting that their current ways for success will not be the means by which they can prosper in the future.

Now to give all these folks there due, it is true that big capital assets change very slowly. Mainframes are still in use, but constitute a smaller and smaller portion of the computing platform base. By the same token, big enterprise applications will still be in use for the next 10 to 15 years but will not represent a growing part of budgets.

What will be growing are the positions and clout of today's under-40 set who use Facebook and want their iPhones to hook up to corporate e-mail (today they are being told no way.) Where do you think they will want to spend money? Not in classic ERP. Not in classic enterprise software.

So if you are planning for the future, put down your golf clubs as well as gin & tonic and spend some time with an avatar at Second Life while updating your Facebook identity after you contribute to a crowdsourcing activity. You may get a good idea where much the new money in the future will be spent.

Erik Keller is principal of technology consultancy, Wapiti LLC.