The information age has brought about the rise of a new type of technology company.  These are companies where the products or services they produce/provide are intrinsically connected to the IT infrastructure required to sustain the enterprise’s day to day operations. Unlike a food processor where the consumer product is supported by technology but disconnected once it is consumed.  In these enterprises, the consumer buys a product/service that links them back into the enterprise’s IT infrastructure and the company monetizes this connection in order to perpetuate business and seduce the consumer down the path to purchasing more and more offerings to leverage the established link.

Even giants like Microsoft are going this way by eliminating free Hotmail and replacing it with free online Outlook and SkyDrive space in the cloud.  Companies who identify their current reliance on IT as a part of their business value proposition will be able to take advantage of this fact to create strategic inflection points.  They will use adjunct offerings that take the enterprise to a new level of revenue and profitability.  “Quick” tactical offerings with IT infrastructure “come-along” benefits will seed the prime rose path leading the consumer to partake in future offerings built upon a baseline infrastructure.  Emergence of these new Technology Giants will be driven by executive leadership recognizing that IT isn’t just a necessary evil but rather an important platform allowing the launch of never before revenue models and opportunities.