By Bruce Kornfeld
The technology profession has always been characterised by innovation and transformation – it’s a defining strength. Currently, however, a range of significant trends is adding to the pressures faced by IT leaders as they plan strategy and investment.
Right up there, of course, is AI adoption. According to a study by McKinsey, over three-quarters of organizations are now using AI in at least one business function, with companies “rewiring to capture value.” Elsewhere, the tech industry has also seen a seismic shift in customer expectations, with most (80%) now considering the experience a company provides to be as important as its products and services.
Indeed, practically every corner of the technology industry is grappling with disruptive trends and shifts in the status quo. Take Broadcom’s high-profile acquisition of VMware in 2023, for example, a deal that triggered substantial changes in product offerings, licensing models, and partner programs. For many organizations, the situation served as a timely reminder about the risks of being overly reliant on a single vendor and the importance of having more flexible technology stacks – a situation whose ripple effects are still being felt today.
The Broadcom/VMware deal and the significant changes that followed prompted many organizations to explore alternatives that offer greater flexibility and cost efficiency. In particular, VMware’s revised licensing model has prioritised enterprise data centres over edge sites and small/medium enterprise use cases. Many of these organizations began exploring open-source technologies and more adaptable IT infrastructure solutions.
Why? Key to the debate is being able to pivot to different types of hardware, OSs, hypervisors, and software tools, which has become a key advantage for those organizations reliant on a changing market. In this context, diversified technology stacks, delivered by open-source solutions or other flexible alternatives, are gaining traction as companies seek to minimise their exposure to single-vendor dependencies.
This brings up a wider point about vendor relationships: organizations are learning to prioritise contract terms that ensure adaptability during times of consolidation. As many businesses have found, longer-term vendor commitments with limited exit flexibility may seem advantageous at first, but when subjected to issues associated with acquisition, these terms can quickly and unexpectedly raise the spectre of vendor lock-in.
As a result, procurement strategies increasingly reflect a desire on the part of customers for shorter, more flexible agreements that allow them to adjust to changing market conditions without the need for extensive migrations or budget reallocation. The industry’s migration to primarily deploying subscription-based licensing for software and even hardware helps to avoid some of these challenging and potentially costly scenarios.
Solving for flexibility
The lesson for IT leaders is that flexibility must be designed into the infrastructure itself. That’s why hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and edge computing are gaining such momentum, not only by simplifying operations but also helping organizations withstand the shocks of any market volatility.
More specifically, HCI has developed from its role as a niche solution to a mainstream approach because it directly addresses the challenges of virtualisation software market volatility. By combining storage, compute, and networking into a single, unified platform, HCI can simplify operations and enhance flexibility, particularly when market shifts may lead key software providers to change direction unexpectedly.
Crucially, there are now plenty of HCI solutions that are based on open-source technologies that offer the flexibility needed to maintain business continuity and minimise disruption. Driven by this major advantage, it’s no surprise that the global HCI market is projected to grow from nearly $12 billion last year to over $60 billion by 2032.
Similarly, the edge market is booming, primarily because, aside from reducing costs and latency, it now plays a key role in ensuring operational continuity, particularly as businesses seek to reduce cloud dependence and improve real-time decision-making.
Embracing change
The underlying point is that market disruption, whether it is the result of rapid innovation, sector consolidation, or other hard-to-predict factors, is an issue that businesses need to acknowledge and plan for.
The big question, of course, is how? Firstly, companies that maintain strategic relationships with multiple vendors have consistently shown greater flexibility during market shifts. Let’s be clear, this isn’t about playing vendors against each other, but instead creating a purposeful ecosystem that prevents single points of failure.
In addition, organizations embracing software-defined technologies gain adaptability that hardware-centric approaches simply can’t match. This shift requires both technical and cultural adjustments, in addition to paying dividends when rapid change becomes necessary.
Then there are the issues associated with security, which can’t be bolted on after a migration. The most successful transitions embed security teams from day one, treating them as essential architects rather than final approvers. This approach prevents the common pattern of rushed migrations creating new vulnerabilities.
And ultimately, the human factor is synonymous with adaptability, with those who invest in agile teams before disruption hits recovering dramatically faster. A culture that values training, curiosity, and rewarding those who learn new systems will generally adapt better to technology and industry changes than those with deeper but narrower expertise.
The author
Bruce Kornfeld is Chief Product Officer at StorMagic
