What's the use of a newborn baby, or a Digital Platform Conductor tool

With family members, friends and colleagues (congrats Phil Dawson!) celebrating the arrivals of newborns, I am reminded of the Ben Franklin response to someone asking what a hot air balloon was good for - "What good is a newborn baby?" After all, with new things, we have to look past what they can do now to see the potential of what they could do in the future.

Watching the Digital Platform Conductor (DPC) tools market emerge since we identified it in 2021 has made me think about this a lot. The most interesting thing about its emergence is how much the need is recognized when talking about digital transformation, without connecting it to the DPC tools concept. In fact, just today my colleague and friend Dan Wilson shared 2 examples of this:

• Kyndryl's update on Kyndryl Bridge, which fits very well with the integration-led sourcing pattern for DPC tools we discussed in our Market Guide for Digital Platform Conductor Tools
• Charles Araujo, who I met back when he had just written his fine book The Quantum Age of IT, shared some intriguing thoughts on his concept of a "Digital Transformation Platform", which describes a reference architecture that seems to scream out for DPC tools to help organizations achieve this goal

While DPC is not mentioned in either item, it's another indication that this trend is gaining traction. As I said earlier this year in Network World's article Digital platform conductors help manage hybrid networks, "What is growing is the recognition that just having a lot of management tools is not enough to meet the needs of digital business." Looks like that recognition is still growing!

For more insights like I have shared above, join us at either Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference 2023 in Las Vegas on December 5 - 7 or in London on November 21 -22. We'll be bringing the world's technology leaders together to hear top trends, find objective answers and discuss practices that work. Attend the conference to gain the insights and guidance you'll gain to create an effective pathway to the future and network with your peers.