Applications sit squarely at the centre of effective technology delivery. If one wants to measure if technologies meet the expectations of business users or customers, applications will give the room’s temperature. Applications are the established touchpoints between users and services, a relationship that has gained emphasis as business and technologies intertwine.

“Applications are now providing the services and differentiating value of a business to the end-user,” says Stephen Bottger, executive: DevOps Professional Services at Altron Systems Integration. “ Gone are the days of it being a cost centre. It’s now a business driver in terms of services, revenue and value to the customer. Customer attrition and growth are in many cases sitting squarely on service performance and value offered by applications. In many cases, the application is becoming business IP and drives a significant part of the business revenue stream.”