This week, the Open Data Center Alliance announced itself. Yet another industry association? I hear you yawning already. Don't nod off, though. Within two years, the ODCA is likely to be the most important, powerful, and useful industry association in information technology. How is that possible?
The association is creating a culture of sharing between global IT leaders, allowing them to learn from each other and cooperatively influence tens to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of annual IT procurements. That is a wow-worthy new world order.
It's true that IT is already chock-a-block with industry associations. We have groups defining a broad range of standards (DMTF, IETF, OASIS, and W3C) and groups focused on developing specific technologies (PCI-SIG or USB Device Working Group). We have ecosystem development groups (Blade.org or the Itanium Solutions Alliance). We have groups aligned with specific vendors (most user groups), industries (ITU-T for telecommunications), nations national standards bodies such as ANSI and DIN), and even all humanity (the International Standards Organization).
The association is creating a culture of sharing between global IT leaders, allowing them to learn from each other and cooperatively influence tens to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of annual IT procurements. That is a wow-worthy new world order. It's true that IT is already chock-a-block with industry associations. We have groups defining a broad range of standards (DMTF, IETF, OASIS, and W3C) and groups focused on developing specific technologies (PCI-SIG or USB Device Working Group). We have ecosystem development groups (Blade.org or the Itanium Solutions Alliance). We have groups aligned with specific vendors (most user groups), industries (ITU-T for telecommunications), nations national standards bodies such as ANSI and DIN), and even all humanity (the International Standards Organization).
