In 2002, Fotango (the subsidiary that I was CEO of) embarked on a program to introduce component web services throughout the organisation. By 2005, we had component web services, our own private infrastructure service combined with configuration management and deployment systems (known as Borg), we had BYOD, continuous deployment & automated testing systems. We were agile, we extensively used and contributed to open source, we had started mapping, and we were launching our own platform as a service etc. Of course, we then had the usual big name consultants persuade the parent company that the stuff we were doing - 3D printing, mobile phones as cameras, utility computing - was not the future and the future was SED Television ... duh.
Anyhow, this is what I don't get. Micro services has become a big thing - good. But micro services has also become a 'new' thing. Why? These concepts aren't new. Building organisations with small components provided through services is circa 2002 and the concepts existed well before this. So, why do we have to continuously create 'new' terms to describe what is already happening.
I've seen this so many times - Enterprise 2.0, Cloud, DevOps - that I assume there is a necessity in creating a new meme for pre-existing and often fairly well established practices or concepts. It's a though we need the meme to crystallise action around a concept but of course that concept has to be spread before the meme can establish.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone is working on the necessity of memes?
