Your new job: Cloud Computing Services Officer

Back in the day when a company's computers primarily ran payroll, rudimentary Ollie Wight-inspired material requirements planning (MRP) programs and basic general ledger functions, the leader of the computer group was called the data processing manager. That job titled morphed into management information system manager as technology became more sophisticated and spread throughout an organization.

Eventually the IT leader's title evolved to chief information officer as the role became less about data processing and systems and settled upon the notion that the top computer guru was really in charge of managing a business's information--from its inception and workflow through its continuity and safety.

Each career step along the way--DP manager to MIS manager to CIO--was additive. That is, new responsibilities were embraced while old ones were retained.

The CIO's job is changing again and, I suspect, we'll start seeing new titles to go with it. The contemporary IT leader will be charged with overseeing an organization's computer-dependent services in addition to everything else. For lack of a better TLA, I'm dubbing the new position with four letters, the CCSO: cloud computing services officer.

CCSOs will have CISOs (chief information security officers), CSAs (chief software architects) and other IT honchos reporting to them. They will be charged not only with managing internal IT operations, but, more importantly, designing them as services that can be consumed and paid for internally and externally. CCSOs will oversee the use of subscription services, not just SaaS but access to on-demand IT utility grids. Also, they will design their systems and networks to be used by others for subscription purposes.

The commoditization of technology coupled with ubiquitous broadband networks gives companies opportunities to become providers of IT services as well as consumers of them. In some organizations CCSOs will have P&L responsibilities much like other business unit managers, giving them even more authority inside the organization.

CCSOs will need different capabilities from cloud computing than are available now. Today's announcement from San Francisco-based Engine Yard Inc. is a step along that path. As Tom Mornini, chief technology officer for the company said when he briefed me, software developers who want to run their apps in the cloud, "need something that is application-centric and cloud neutral."

The arrival of CCSOs (or whatever they end up being called) will be the ultimate recognition by business that IT is less and less about systems, software or even the information they support, and more about the services those tools bring to an organization.