So, ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) turned 20 years old recently!

20 years on, and three versions later....

Is it really that old?  Born in the UK (some say other countries),  out of the need to formalize and systematize service delivery, ITIL has been steadily gaining popularity around the world as a way to streamline IT service management.

For a best-practice service management framework that's been around for 2 decades, it seems that a lot of people and organizations have never heard of it, much less understand the concepts of incident, problem and change management.  Here in Australia, we talk to many businesses that for them, ITIL is not even on their radar.  Never heard of it - don't care about it.

It's not that surprising really.  The first time the Australian trade show market for helpdesk (back in the HDI days) saw anything about ITIL was the following booth from Pink Elephant Australia at the 2000 HDI PACRIM convention leading with the bold display..

The helpdesk is nothing!

(...without ITIL)
 

Perhaps now that ITIL is no longer a teenager, it might settle-down and do some serious marketing and start impacting the service desk and helpdesk market a bit more, at least here in Australia.  If you're quick, the ITIL official site is doing some deals on ITIL publications.  Check them out here http://www.itil-officialsite.com/home/home.asp

With recent announcements and shakeups in product certification, the industry is definitely going to change.  I wonder what the next 20 years will bring?

Any thoughts?