The App Wars Will End: Two Paths, One Future
Industrial organisations are surrounded by applications, platforms and digital tools, each promising to unlock more value from operational data. In this thought-provoking presentation, Steve Taylor of ITI Group explores why the “app wars” cannot continue indefinitely, and why businesses must make clearer choices about the technology paths they follow.
The session traces how operational data environments have evolved from core systems such as SCADA, DCS, historians, databases and instruments into increasingly crowded ecosystems of analytics platforms, AI tools, cloud services and specialist applications. While this growth has created new opportunities, it has also introduced complexity, duplication and competing application stacks across teams.
At the centre of the discussion are two strategic paths: standardise or disrupt. Standardisation focuses on doing more with existing tools, reducing unnecessary duplication and maximising value from mature platforms. Disruption looks towards emerging technologies, new capabilities and replacement strategies, offering potentially higher rewards but also greater risk.
Steve also examines why this decision is becoming more difficult. Mature systems continue to expand and become more feature-complete, while new entrants constantly challenge existing architectures. For organisations trying to modernise their digital operations, the question is no longer simply which application to buy, but how to build a technology landscape that can support both stability and innovation.
The presentation offers a clear perspective on the future of industrial software strategy, showing how the end of the “app wars” may come not from one tool winning, but from organisations making more deliberate choices about architecture, integration and long-term value from operational data.
