Quite a heated thread here.
In general Business Applications are a conceptual representation of "applications" that are deployed in a datacenter (yours or the cloud) that needs to be managed operationally. Our CSDM model was created with this thread to connect the conceptual concern of a Business Application, through each deployment at an Application Service, and finally in all the network devices, code running on servers etc. that makes each deployment. Desktop software has never really entered into the equation when App Portfolio Management as a practice was established.
What IS lacking is the ability to strategically plan those Technology service investments and Business Services WITH associated Business Application joined at the hip. Digital Portfolio Management was crated to bridge that gap, but we still don't have what I would call a single concept to account for great variety of things like desktop software, hardware devices, and other things that are important to the business, but don't quite meet the definition of a Business Application. So PLEASE don't conflate Business Application with other concepts and confuse the original intent of why and how APM currently expects this entity to be used and connect through the rest of the data model.
For APM practices, there are quite a few resources out there. When I was a Product Manager for APM back in the day, I posted this blog to help understand APM practices, for the most part it still stands.
In the future, to better account for strategic investment and planning required for all types of Applications, Hardware, and Services (yes even desktops and smart phones etc.) we are going down the path to create Digital Products. We will prescribe that they are to be managed in 4 key portfolios, see below for more detail. The Digital Product will encompass what we currently think of as Business App, Technology Service, Business Service and any combination of these. They also include any goods and services sold to customers that are digital, or which require digital technologies to realize an outcomes for your paying customers. The main differentiation between them is context of the consumers. Our next stage of evolution will simplify the line-of-site between investment and planning decisions, and the outcomes for each of the 4 consumer archetypes. It will also simplify the inter-departmental "contracts" between teams, and provide a better SIAM and cost transparency between each link in the digital supply chain. Using today's IT management paradigms and practices, line of site is nearly impossible and we see people contorting our data model in strange ways to make up for this lack of a common ground to manage what needs to be managed, regardless of the form.
