On Roles of Models in Information Systems - Intentional Perspectives on Information Systems Engineering - page 20

The first information systems appeared together with the databases during the
1970s. Information systems were specialized and self-contained. Software and
hardware was built to support one and only one information system. Over the
years we have learnt how to reuse software, and standard software packages are
increasingly replacing the specialized solutions. For large organizations the tran-
sition from specialized to packaged software was over at the end of the 1990s.
Almost all large companies by then used some form of packaged enterprise

system [ 9] .
Operating systems as well as central application systems in e.g., finance and
auditing, evolved during the same period into software platforms for large appli-
cation domains, e.g., banking platforms, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
platforms. Most of the software platforms are proprietary, in the sense that they are
owned and controlled by large industrial actors, e.g., Microsoft Windows. The plat-
forms provide a competitive edge for the companies that own them. The increasing
reliance on software platform can also be seen in service oriented computing [ 24]
and in workflow management [ 8] .
A very interesting development is seen in the development of application plat-
forms for mobile phones. The major vendors of “smart” phones invite the general
public to develop applications (“apps”) for their proprietary operating system
platform. This represents a major “democratization” of application software devel-
opment, see [ 14] . Virtually everybody with relevant knowledge can develop their
own app and sell it via their smart phone producer.
The movement towards Open Source Software has made available large numbers
of packaged solutions for a myriad of application areas [ 35] . Information systems
engineering has moved towards becoming a “normal” engineering discipline were
it is possible to shop for available software solutions in a way similar to what is
done in “classical” engineering, where design is based on the effective assembling
of available system components.

3 Central Issues in Information Systems Engineering

Some of the most important issues in information systems engineering are con-
cerned with:

• managing information system projects,

• systems design approaches,

• modeling languages for information systems, domain systems and data systems,

• comprehension of specifications,

• modeling of the meaning of data,

• validation techniques,

• changes in the information systems domain and technological environment.

These will be discussed in the sequel.