Australia's double dragon enterprise IT revolution

The introduction of new telephony platforms based on the internet protocol into large organisations over the past decade is a good example of this. You have a legacy technology - in this case, analogue PABX systems and desk phones - which is replaced on a one to one basis by something new - IP telephony and unified communications systems. Benefits ensue.

For years, for example, IT departments have been scheduling in a mass upgrade to the next version of Microsoft Windows or Office, or selective upgrades of server platforms or applications. And even where a technology deployment has been a bit more revolutionary - say, for example, the migration off per-server storage and onto storage area networks - it's been something that they can quantify and understand.

Companies like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Symantec, IBM and so on have become very good at managing this sort of technology upgrade cycle. It has benefits for the end user, because they get new features and performance enhancements on a regular basis, and for the vendor it offers a recurring revenue stream as they roll out a new upgrade on a regular basis.