Legacy Technologies were usually focused on what happens inside the company's walls. Consequently, they were generally closed to other systems, proprietary, and difficult for end users to access. Because of the cost and the learning curve for new technologies, early IT projects focused on specific functions (such as account reconciliation within a finance department or inventory tracking in a grocery store chain). We can think of this era as "IT-streamlined" but not fully digital in the way the term is used now; most forms of IT work focused on 'faster, better or cheaper' versions of analog approaches to work. In other words, the benefits were still limited to business models and offerings which would be recognizable to someone who wasn't aware of computers.

Because of this, less attention was paid to interoperability and user interface than was paid to basic functioning. Value creation for companies with this mindset still tends to be limited to a linear, analog perspective, that of production 'pipelines.' Most corporate employees are familiar with what happened next: Systems needed to connect to each other as technology became more prevalent. Digital infrastructure became hard to manage, secure, and keep within budget. In response, many technology leaders attempted to create modular platforms and enterprise architecture to bring control and order to the rising chaos. Taking command-and-control management strategies of the industrial era to their logical conclusion meant consolidating systems into centralized IT departments.

This approach worked reasonably well for predictable, low-change functions like payroll preparation. But as more users, institutions, and datasets were added, technology interdependencies became ever more complex, causing challenges when one company needed to connect to (or had acquired) another. Centralized command and a one-size-fits-all approach to technology doesn't work for every situation. As infrastructure components advanced and new tech-savvy competitors arrived, the technology landscape became more heterogeneous and chaotic. Fierce competition in software and hardware industries often resulted in infrastructure becoming a tangled mess of interdependencies. Custom solutions were built for individual companies or even different departments within the same company. Many companies combined several strategies to address the need for technological innovation and efficiencies:

• Internal, custom development of technology tools by IT departments or via contractors
• Licensing general-purpose technology platforms like Microsoft Office (and its related tools)
• "Hacks" of mainstream tools (like spreadsheets) by employees to get their needs met
• Industry-specific tools (such as Bloomberg's stock trading software in the finance industry)

It was (and still is) common to see a combination of all of these approaches. When overwhelmed by the complexity, risk, and cost of those strategies, many companies postponed modernization altogether, creating what is sometimes referred to as 'technology debt,' or an ever-increasing backlog of necessary tech updates. The increasing importance of digitization gave rise to the concept of 'technology as a platform.' However, depending on who was asked, 'platform' could mean anything from a collection of software produced by the same developer (like Microsoft, Novell, or Oracle), a company-specific set of tools developed in-house, or a place where lots of different software mixed (where all the tech 'pipes' came together). 'Platform' connotes a shared infrastructure and, sometimes, rigidly hierarchical models of leadership and control. Many firms experience a constant tension between the alignment required for stability and the autonomy necessary for innovation especially for conglomerates or other complex firms which are growing in size to span many customer groups, geographies, and even moving into new industries.

It isn't sufficient to simply create an aligned set of technologies developed by a central power, because the speed and scope of innovation required for an ever-accelerating world make it hard to develop a central technology the use cases of technologies aren't as static as they have been in the past. Startups with less inertia and tech debt gladly mix and match more modern software, outpacing large companies' slower rate of innovation. Firms of all sizes need to have room to gracefully add or subtract new technologies in a stable and secure way and sometimes allow 'competing' approaches to co-exist, such as two different customer relationship management (CRM) tools for different parts of the business. Thinking of "platform" as only a technology strategy isn't enough to modernize in the face of the ever-changing needs of companies and users.