Over the years, the view of what IT was (and is) has expanded. Initially IT was a mainframe computer, a few programmers, and batch programs that generated reports for a limited number of internal employees. Then it was mainframes and terminals, with applications that handled the most mission-critical (or at least computationally-critical) portions of a company’s business process. These were used by even more employees. Then, over time, IT evolved to mini-computers with many users, personal computers for all employees and now Web- or Intranet-based solutions intended to be used by employees, partners, customers and just about anyone else.
At the same time that this expansion has been happening, there’s been an expansion of the notion of the role of applications, as well as an expansion of the importance of application management. For example, initially, applications were managed centrally, but over time organizations have either stopping managing them (remember client/server?) or invested in IT-oriented solutions that can now package, deploy, and manage applications across a wide range of systems and users.
