Is 'Platform' the new Hardware?

You've probaly heard about Microsoft Azure, Google, Oracle Cloud, Salesforce Force.com or AWS, as 'cloud platforms'. PAAS, IAAS, SAAS all sorts of acronyms exist, but fundamentally do much the same, they are there to run applications, maybe from the same vendor, but also for other vendors applications, encouraged to run their application on the platform and build out the 'ecosystem'.

Am I imagining there seems to be a push for businesses (IT Buyers) to commit to a platform for the whole organisation by the platform providers? Because it's 'easier to maintain', 'one set of skills', 'easier integration', 'more common UI' goes the sales-pitch and thats NOT unjustified, but makes me think what's old is now new again? Let me explain.

I'm old enough to remember working in IT in the 80's, back then hardware was king, you were an IBM-'shop', or DEC or Unisys. IBM S/36, and later AS400 fought with Digital VAX, and IT departments chose the solution and not just the servers, the network, routers, printers, terminals ALL came mostly from the same hardware vendor, massive hardware lock-in. Very often the IT evaluation was hardware centric, then the software applications followed, eg JD Edwards if you had AS400, Cincom on Vax, R/2 on mainframe.

In the '90's that shifted, open systems, unix/linux, IP, and software portability meant the choices could become separate, the business users can choose the preferred solution and the hardware was chosen to suit. The software was evaluated against usability, and business outcomes, users even became part of the buying process for software.

More recently 'cloud computing' promises 'it's a black box, its just a service' and the customer doesnt have any visibility or worry about the hardware infrastructure, the vendor manages that and packages it up as a single service. Interoperability is managed with open-APIs, web browsers and middleware (also in the cloud!).

And that brings us back to 'Platforms' in the cloud, where the vendors propose customers should run all (or most of) their business applications on their 'platform'. Dont get me wrong, I understand that can be more simpler and even lower some IT cost, platforms have a lot of benefits, but like the hardware-era should a platform be dictated to the point it compromises the business software choice? I have seen organisations (I know a surprisingly large one currently out to tender) mandate the platform, and limit the business applications the business stakeholders can choose from. (Now full-disclosure, as someone who sells applications on specific platforms, that can work 'for' and 'against' me, so I dont really mind, I just pick my battles, but is limiting choice the right outcome for the customer and their business?)

Business value, be that improving efficiency, customer experience, retention, process automation, usability, staff satisfaction, mostly come from the business applications used and deployed properly. In this age of cloud interoperability (it's not like the 80's trying to get a AS400 and Vax to talk to each other... just ask me!), should the IT cloud platform be dictating the customers software selection?

Dont get me wrong I understand the benefits of a 'Platform Standardisation IT Strategy', and some of the costs to not having it. But it seems the organisational goals of growth, revenue, productivity, quality of service, safety and customer/staff satisfaction (or whatever they may be), should be driving IT direction, and those are usually most influenced by the business applications, irrelevant of, or at least in preference to, the cloud platform choice. We learnt this from the 80's. Maybe customers are better to have a 'federation strategy' of platforms rather than a 'standardisation strategy'

So makes me think, have platforms become the new hardware?

Agree or disagree, or just comment with your story of IT in the 80's