Abstract:
Most organizations today are looking for more cost effective approaches to delivering enterprise applications to their user base.
Among the alternatives that are becoming increasingly popular are various forms of outsourcing and in particular the use of
ASPs (Application Service Providers) to deliver "software-as-a-service". We have analyzed these trends recently and
concluded that the "software-as-a-service" model will become a dominant form of delivering enterprise applications in the near
future [4] [5]. Increasing, the use of externally supplied information services will determine the shape ofthe IS/ICT market and
management decisions about deployment of enterprise IS/ICT. Leading Czech IS/ICT professionals predict that IS/lCT will
undergo even more dramatic changes this decade than towards the end of the last century [17]. These changes will affect both
user organisations and organisations supplying IS/lCT products and services.
In this paper we analyse the above trends and discuss how the IS/ICT user and supplier organisations can prepare for these
developments. In the next section, we discuss the key enterprise computing trends including the strategic importance of ICT.
In the following sections we consider the impact ofthese trends on ICT user organizations and ICT suppliers.
