Cutter Consortium: Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Whistling Past the Graveyard on a Sunny Day

1 Mar 2008 15:05:03 GMT

Blitstein, Ron; Lister, Tim; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

IT professionals strive to work with business partners and engineer businesses for efficiency. It is unclear that the challenge of delivering a resilient organization has received sufficient attention.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2008/03/index.html

Is the World Ready for the Semantic Web?

15 Apr 2008 15:00:05 GMT

Choate, Mark | Executive Updates | 15 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I wrote a book proposal in 2003 that boldly announced that the Web was on the verge of a fundamental change from being a repository of documents to a source of knowledge. The Semantic Web, long discussed and theorized about, was on the verge of becoming mainstream, I wrote. The book found no publisher, and I graciously avoided the fate of so many prognosticators who find their predictions proved false (or premature) by the slow, plodding steps of history.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0808.html

Virtualization: Current Issues and Strategies

1 Apr 2008 14:59:27 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 01 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Virtualization has become increasingly important in data centers over the past several years, as companies have sought to contain costs, reduce physical server use, and improve efficiency. In this Executive Update, we'll examine the current issues and strategies in the virtualization realm.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0807.html

Net Neutrality

15 Mar 2008 14:58:38 GMT

Choate, Mark | Executive Updates | 15 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The controversy over Net neutrality raised its head again when the Associated Press reported in October 2007 that Comcast was throttling peer-to-peer (P2P) Internet traffic. Proponents of Net neutrality saw it as the smoking gun that definitively proves the need for Net neutrality legislation. The debate and the various calls for legislated remedies have introduced an air of uncertainty in the marketplace. Regardless of how politicians ultimately decide to respond to the issue, the debate raises important questions for IT professionals in terms of how much they should invest in technologies that consume high bandwidth, such as P2P and VoIP, and how the proposed remedies might affect the underlying cost structure of those technologies.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0806.html

Back to the Future Again -- From the Fourth Generation to the Third, Part I

1 May 2008 22:26:15 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 01 May 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence

One of the interesting dilemmas facing current IT development managers is what to do with the applications that were written in what used to be referred to as 4GLs (fourth-generation languages). In the 1980s and 1990s, a number of such languages were developed that were designed first to handle management reporting tasks and then to develop basic PC and client-server applications. A key characteristic of these kinds of development environments is that they were based on a specific database. Over time, most of these tools gravitated to one or another relational database management system, or RDBMS (DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, etc.). The hallmark of these tools is that they did many things for you. Among these 4GLs were tools like Oracle Forms and Microsoft Access (which included its own RDBMS).

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080501.html

Weizenbaum, Eliza, and the Boundaries of AI

24 Apr 2008 22:14:25 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 24 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I noted that Joseph Weizenbaum died last month. Weizenbaum was an early computer scientist, most famous perhaps for the creation of Eliza, a very early artificial intelligence (AI) program fashioned around a simple pattern recognition (stimulus-response) model that mimicked the approach used by psychologists and psychiatrists in talking to patients.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080424.html

Net Neutrality

15 Mar 2008 18:15:22 GMT

Convergence CRM to Accelerate "Personal" Service

17 Apr 2008 18:13:34 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 17 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I recently spent some time on hold with -- and occasionally actually speaking with -- "technical support" representatives. I listened to the on-hold voice tell me over and over again that I could just go to the Web site for technical support, since the scripts that the human technical support team used to troubleshoot problems were the same scripts that the digital technical-support team used. This advice struck me as peculiar: if I could really get the answers I needed from the Web, then why was the company spending so much money frustrating me with 1-800-number support? Was the voice implying that I was an idiot to actually want to speak with someone? I bounced from service rep to service rep, ending with a (live) support professional telling me that she did not know how to solve my problem.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080417.html

When Applying a Standard, Use Your Judgment

10 Apr 2008 15:30:07 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 10 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture; Business Intelligence; Agile Project Management

I was talking to someone recently who had used a requirements approach about which I was skeptical.

"How many times have you worked on a project that used this approach?" I asked.

"I'd guess 25 or 26," he replied.

"Did it work?" I asked. "It didn't," he replied.

"Why are you recommending it on this project?" I asked, as my voice got louder.

"It is a standard," he answered, after a little consideration.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080410.html

Why Mining Internet Social Media Is Difficult

8 Apr 2008 15:25:06 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 08 April 2008 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The problem with mining blogs, message boards, online forums, and other social media is that it requires the use of text-mining tools that can analyze unstructured data. Similar to structured data mining, text mining uses sophisticated algorithms, such as neural networks, case-based reasoning (CBR), probabilistic reasoning, advanced statistical methods, and other machine learning techniques, to automate data analysis and discovery in unstructured data. But a key differentiator between the two is that text mining can also makes use of natural language processing (NLP) techniques, such as lexical processing and analysis, word/phrase parsing, and other methods, to enable text mining systems to identify and highlight key concepts and relationships among words in text. All of these techniques, however, are not widely understood by most corporate IT departments. Consequently, the mining and analysis of unstructured data is not widely used by mainstream organizations.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2008/bia080408.html

A Solid Innovation in Laptop Storage Begins to Emerge

3 Apr 2008 15:22:14 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 03 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

As is the case with many technology innovations compared to existing solutions, the market price starts high and the benefits taken in the context of the costs involved start low. Price and benefits move toward each other until joining at that inflection point of value where the innovation presents an affordable alternative to the existing technology. We might be quickly approaching the affordability inflection point in solid-state storage.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080403.html

Tactics for a New Era: What Startups and Wind-Downs Do Now

1 Mar 2008 17:21:54 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Updates | 01 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

After 25 years on the corporate platform, there has been a massive shift; we're now moving outside of the corporate firewall into "the cloud" of the Internet platform (see Figure 1). So what does this mean for startup and wind-down companies?

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0805.html

"We Tried That!" How Failure Can Be Just a Beginning

27 Mar 2008 20:41:54 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 27 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

At a conference recently, a group of approximately 100 people had just witnessed an impressive demo of a mature application development environment. At the end of the session, there was a question-and-answer session. At one point, a fellow at the back of the room asked, "Isn't that like a CASE tool?" I was acting as the moderator, and I wasn't sure how to respond.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080327.html

What Was Microsoft Thinking? Part 2

20 Mar 2008 20:24:26 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 20 March 2008 | Innovation; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In my last Trends Advisor (see "What Was Microsoft Thinking?" 6 March 2008), I took Microsoft to task for its latest set of mainline products, particularly Word 2007. One of the e-mails I got back said that Microsoft had done extensive requirements gathering and that the latest version of Word 2007 had 90% coverage of all of the major functions people requested. I suspect that is right. Indeed, the problem with most word-processing, presentation, and spreadsheet programs is that they are indeed "feature rich."

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080320.html

HDTV and the Office

1 Feb 2008 19:22:03 GMT

DeMarco, Tom; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Present advances in home media promise to be the tail that wags the dog of organizational computing.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2008/02/index.html

What Was Microsoft Thinking?

6 Mar 2008 15:36:59 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 06 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In previous Trends Advisors, I've talked about Steve Jobs and closed versus open architectures. Now I have to talk about the problem with open architectures in closed (read monopolistic) economies. This is a world in which one vendor controls (or used to control) close to 90% of desktop and laptop operating systems and nearly that much of the office application software. In these circumstances, there is a tendency to fall into the trap of producing increasingly complicated software that does more and more things in an attempt to keep prices high and the revenue stream flowing in.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080306.html

The Green Data Center: Taking the First Steps Toward Green IT? Part II

15 Feb 2008 15:15:29 GMT

Osborne, Ian | Executive Updates | 15 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Part I in this two-part Executive Update series (Vol. 9, No. 3) defined green IT and discussed the developments and initiatives that have led to an awareness of the need for green data centers in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Here in Part II, I discuss some principles, make recommendations for the design and operation of a green computing infrastructure, and propose a strategy for implementation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0804.html

It's Better Outside

28 Feb 2008 15:00:59 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 28 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The big change from the last century to the one we find ourselves in today is the locus of computing and communications technology and the way we're destined to use this technology.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080228.html

Why Business Performance Management Is a Strategic Imperative

26 Feb 2008 14:55:26 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 26 February 2008 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Organizations should now view business performance management as a strategic initiative that is essential for monitoring, measuring, and optimizing corporate performance. Organizations that fail to take this view risk being outperformed by more nimble competitors that do.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2008/bia080226.html

The Stata Center Is Leaking! Part 1

21 Feb 2008 14:50:56 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 21 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management

In 1943, a very important building was built on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, that became something of a celebrity in its own right. For one thing, like many WWII-era buildings, Building 20 was a "temporary" structure. And like many temporary structures, it outlived its original planning horizon. It was never intended to last this long.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080221.html

How Models, Prototypes Can Set You Free, Part 1

14 Feb 2008 15:23:13 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 14 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management

For the most part, I've found that the trick in working with people is not to dazzle them with formal modeling, but to use models -- especially visual models and prototypes -- to help define problems that are not easy to put into words. In the right circumstances, visual models and prototypes can improve communication dramatically. The more real the models are, the better most people can relate to them.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080214.html

The Green Data Center: Taking the First Steps Toward Green IT? Part I

1 Feb 2008 15:13:54 GMT

Osborne, Ian | Executive Updates | 01 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Grid Computing Now! is a UK-based knowledge-transfer network aimed at championing the adoption of grid computing technologies to IT leaders in UK public and private sectors. Since its establishment in 2005, the project has witnessed the gradual absorption of key technologies and principles into mainstream computing capabilities and flagship implementations of distributed computing infrastructures in the world's leading IT users: Google, Amazon.com, and eBay, as well as leading organizations in the financial, pharmaceutical, engineering, and oil and gas sectors. While the root cause for this adoption of grid has been the need for large-scale computing capabilities for their businesses, a new imperative is emerging: green IT. In this context, this term alludes to the notion of more energy-efficient computing capabilities, leading to reduced carbon emissions and energy costs. In this first Executive Update of a two-part series, I survey the developments underway in the UK and European Commission (EC), including discussion of the regulatory activities being considered, as well as some early case studies of successful adoption within the data center. In Part II, some principles and recommendations are made and a strategy for implementation is discussed.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0803.html

Summit LA Themes and Implications Podcast

24 Oct 2007 20:30:19 GMT

DeMarco, Tom | Webinars/Multimedia | 24 October 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Tom DeMarco wraps up Summit 2007 Latin America by identifying the themes that have emerged throughout the conference. This live "take-home lesson checklist" helps you define both your corporate business-IT strategy and your personal professional growth strategy.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/webinar/2007/summit-la-themes.html

Artificial Intelligence: Rumors of Its Demise Were Greatly Exaggerated

1 Jan 2008 20:19:52 GMT

Ellyn, Lynne; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology never died; rather, it became the secret sauce in many of today's most successful technologies and now offers brave IT departments the opportunity to deploy truly innovative solutions to enable business success.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/reports/2008/01/index.html

Enterprises Take Steps to Customize E-Learning

7 Feb 2008 20:08:56 GMT

Dublin, Lance | E-Mail Advisors | 07 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

It is often said that there are only two things you can be sure of in life: death and taxes. Well, in today's world, I think you have to add three more things to that list -- change, technology, and learning.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080207.html

SaaS Penetrates the IT Department

15 Jan 2008 19:53:53 GMT

Kaplan, Jeffrey M. | Executive Updates | 15 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Now a new generation of SaaS solutions is emerging that are specifically aimed at helping IT professionals perform their responsibilities and better support the business needs of their corporate end users and executives. Cutter's third annual SaaS survey indicates that this new generation of IT management SaaS solutions is gaining acceptance and could transform the way IT departments operate.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0802.html

Creative Revolution or the Assault on Culture?

31 Jan 2008 19:43:15 GMT

Stokalski, Borys | E-Mail Advisors | 31 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

Andrew Keen's book The Cult of the Amateur pours buckets of cold water onto the heads of Web 2.0 enthusiasts, accusing them of "worshipping the creative amateur" -- regardless of how poorly educated and inarticulate they may be. Keen contends that the vast majority of content delivered by such creative amateurs is of desperately low quality -- and, at the same time, of overwhelmingly large quantity. Keen's lament on this "assault on culture" seems justified, as far as the facts he uses are concerned. But there may be more to this flood of semiartistic content than what Keen pictures as some kind of "culture-cide."

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080131.html

Downturn Should Mean Upturn in Focus on IT's Cost

30 Jan 2008 19:39:56 GMT

Benson, Robert J.; Bugnitz, Tom | E-Mail Advisors | 30 January 2008 | Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

While most of us worry about IT's strategic impact (does IT really matter?), events have turned again to require that we worry about IT's cost. There's little doubt that IT does matter in many industries. However, when times get tough, management's attention returns to the issue of cost.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2008/bit080130.html

Semantic Models, SOA: Speaking a Common Language Across Domains

24 Jan 2008 16:15:43 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 24 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture; Business Intelligence

One of the great things about working with Cutter Consortium is that I get to work with a lot of really smart people. One of those people is Mike Rosen, who is the Enterprise Architecture Practice Director for Cutter as well as a Senior Consultant. Recently, Mike and I were talking about understanding data within service-oriented architecture (SOA), and he said something that I think is really important. He said that one of the things that you have to remember in building a robust SOA environment is the understanding of the "shared semantic model"; it is not enough for each service to define its own data needs; the individual data needs to be the same for all the services that are involved in the same problem domain.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080124.html

Green Requirements for IT and Telecom

1 Jan 2008 15:48:14 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 01 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

As environmental concerns filter into business and industry, IT is coming under scrutiny. Issues include power use and reliance on fossil fuels; disposal of electronic components, which include toxic waste; and effects on other business processes. IT is also seen as an important part of the solution, both within the firm and on a macro level in managing energy use and greenhouse gas emission in industry. It is becoming good policy to consider green issues from a public relations perspective. But, critical to acceptance, most green measures are likely to also result in long-term cost savings through reduced energy costs and more efficient use of equipment.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0801.html

On Large Projects, Velocity Matters, Part 2

17 Jan 2008 13:40:54 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 17 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management; Innovation

If you get a chance, you ought to tune in to Cutter Senior Consultant Michael Mah's Cutter Webinar titled "Case Study: The Impact of Agile on Productivity at Five Companies." [This morning, January 17, at 11:30 EST -- you can still register now or watch the recording at a later date.] I've been working with Michael recently, and he has been giving me a prebriefing on the findings. I don't want to give too much away, but Michael's research has uncovered a number of organizations that are doing very well on large, agile projects. This is really encouraging, since one of the criticisms of agile development has always been that it wouldn't work on really large projects.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080117.html

The Web's Evolution and the Opportunities for the IT Community: Part 2

10 Jan 2008 13:30:33 GMT

Murugesan, San | E-Mail Advisors | 10 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The Web has not yet reached its full potential; it's a moving post. In the first installment of this two-part Advisor series (see "The Web's Evolution and the Opportunities for the IT Community: Part 1," 27 December 2007), we discussed the evolution of the Web into four stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and Web 4.0. While there may not be a clear boundary between these stages or general agreement on what Web 2.0, Web 3.0, or Web X. 0 is, the Web's evolution has not only been significant, but has been "disruptive" in terms of its impact on IT, business, and the society at large. There has been a paradigm shift in how and what for we use the Web.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080110.html

Your Guide to Understanding the Evolution, Power, and Potential of Online Social Networks: Part II

1 Oct 2007 17:38:11 GMT

Murugesan, San | Executive Reports | 01 October 2007 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

How can you harness the power of social networks to your advantage? Has the hype around social networks gone too far? Blindly creating or adopting social networking sites won’t yield the outcomes you desire and may even be counterproductive. But you can leverage the power of the network - the strength of the weak ties - in innovative ways. This Executive Report, the second in a two-part series, examines key challenges in harnessing social networks, identifies emerging trends, and explores the opportunities social networks present for you and your enterprise.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/reports/2007/10/index.html

Happy New Year (But Don't Count On It)

1 Dec 2007 17:29:04 GMT

The Cutter Business Technology Council; Seiden, Mark | Executive Reports | 01 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

From our very first security Opinion, "Pandemic I: Malicious Disruption (The Halloween Scenario)" in October of 2001, we have dealt with security problems more than any other issue. This is in part because our clients tell us it's what they worry about. And just as important, it's because the pieces of a very worrisome whole have been accumulating.

In this month's omnibus Opinion, Council members weigh in on their hopes and fears for what the new year may bring. Whether we're on the brink of an accelerating attack on our underlying infrastructure -- similar to the attack that the Russians seem to have mounted on Estonia's digital networks back in May -- or it's just business as usual with billions of dollars going down the drain for security, the problem just won't go away. And it won't stay the same either. That leaves only one ugly possibility ...

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2007/12/index.html

SaaS Market Shifting from Point Solutions to Platform Strategies

15 Dec 2007 17:22:41 GMT

Kaplan, Jeffrey M. | Executive Updates | 15 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is rapidly evolving to emulate the software industry as a whole. Although most people associate SaaS with Google's collaboration- and productivity-oriented applications and with Salesforce.com's customer relationship management (CRM) and sales automation solutions, the truth is that SaaS alternatives now exist for nearly every legacy application category.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2007/bttu0724.html

Software Indemnification Revisited

1 Dec 2007 17:15:54 GMT

Christenson, Nick | Executive Updates | 01 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Nearly two years ago, I wrote an Executive Update on the topic of IP in software and end-user indemnification (see Vol. 6, No. 1), and I made some predictions about what we could expect. Considerable time has passed since then, so it seems appropriate to revisit the issues surrounding the topic and see whether my predictions held any weight.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2007/bttu0723.html

Your Guide to Understanding the Evolution, Power, and Potential of Online Social Networks: Part I

1 Sep 2007 17:06:24 GMT

Murugesan, San | Executive Reports | 01 September 2007 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Have you joined the social networking bandwagon? If not, it's a pretty safe bet that you will sooner or later. A critical understanding of the continuing advances in social networks is essential to leverage the opportunities this new online forum offers to you and your enterprise. This Executive Report, the first in a two-part series by San Murugesan, takes a comprehensive look at social networks and analyzes their pros and cons. Part II will explore how you can harness social networks to your advantage.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/reports/2007/09/index.html

SaaS Movement Accelerating

15 Dec 2007 17:03:04 GMT

Kaplan, Jeffrey M. | Executive Updates | 15 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Over the past three years, Cutter Consortium has been charting the growth of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market by conducting a series of annual surveys that was the first to discover widespread interest and adoption of SaaS solutions among organizations of all sizes.http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2007/bttu0722.html

If Agile Were to Go Mainstream

3 Jan 2008 16:59:13 GMT

Mah, Michael | E-Mail Advisors | 03 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management

If agile methods are to go mainstream, it might be when their popularity and legitimacy reach a tipping point. An example that this could be happening is a recent New York Times article called "Google Gets Ready to Rumble With Microsoft" (16 December 2007), which Cutter colleague Ken Orr wrote about in a Cutter Trends Advisor titled"Velocity Matters: Google, Microsoft, and Hyper-Agility, Part 1" (20 December 2007). The articles are about Google going after Microsoft's customer base using something called its "cloud" computing framework. But Ken's interpretation of the Google-Microsoft confrontation emphasizes the time-to-market advantages that Google's software development lifecycle has over Microsoft's. Google is apparently practicing a more agile, iterative-style approach (sometimes quarterly) to releasing software, while Microsoft is more tied to the big-bang, multiyear cycle for its products.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080103.html

The Web's Evolution and the Opportunities for the IT Community: Part I

27 Dec 2007 19:54:52 GMT

Murugesan, San | E-Mail Advisors | 27 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The Web has been constantly evolving. The nature and structure of the Web, as well as the way we use it, have been continuously changing; extending opportunities for the IT community. The Web's evolution had been exerting pressure on IT professionals and executives and businesses. We can set the Web's evolution -- past, current, and anticipated -- into four stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and Web 4.0. Let's examine each of them.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071227.html

Velocity Matters: Google, Microsoft, and Hyper-Agility, Part 1

20 Dec 2007 19:47:17 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 20 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management; Innovation

A recent New York Times article "Google Gets Ready to Rumble With Microsoft" (16 December 2007) talks about the growing perception that Google is set on attacking Microsoft's base with a whole set of Web- and mobile-based software applications. While the article touches on the historical battles between the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, and Microsoft leaders Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer (when Schmidt was with Sun Microsystems and Novell), it is mostly about the contrast between how Google and Microsoft develop software.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071220.html

Inside Is Out and Outside Is In

13 Dec 2007 19:52:59 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 13 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

Some organizations are literally turning themselves inside out and outside in as a means of adapting to new ways of doing business brought about by technology. As 2008 looms, this trend should accelerate as more organizations see the potential in the application of these clever arrangements.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071213.html

Toward Integrated Business Processes, Analytics, and Business Rules

11 Dec 2007 19:42:36 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 11 December 2007 | Business Intelligence; Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I've been saying for years that companies should consider data warehousing and BI as strategic applications as opposed to some sort of supplemental capabilities to be "bolted on" to enterprise applications as an afterthought. I've also said that the blending of business PROCESS management (BPM), BI, and business rules technologies will be some of the most important developments to affect enterprise software over the next few years.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2007/bia071211.html

Telepresence (Again)

1 Nov 2007 19:34:03 GMT

DeMarco, Tom; Mazzucchelli, Lou; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 November 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Telepresence is happening, but a lot more slowly than its advocates expected. Nevertheless, this now-nascent trend, when it does blossom, has the potential to be utterly transforming.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2007/11/index.html

Steve Jobs: Architecture, Platforms, and the Big Picture, Part 3

6 Dec 2007 14:42:51 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 06 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture

I certainly got people's attention when I raised the question of "open" versus "closed" architectures (see "Steve Jobs: Architecture, Platforms, and the Big Picture," 25 October 2007, and "Steve Jobs: Architecture, Platforms, and the Big Picture, Part 2," 8 November 2007). I'd like to finish this series by addressing a couple of questions around architectures. First, "closed architectures" work best when two things exist: (1) an elegant architecture and (2) the organization that puts forth the standard has to have some sort of market dominance (think IBM at its peak, Microsoft, and, of course, Apple). Today, people are much more interested in Apple's standard because of Apple's success in the last five or six years.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071206.html

One View of the State of Enterprise Risk Management Practice

6 Dec 2007 14:39:59 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 06 December 2007 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In late October, IBM released the findings of an interesting survey it conducted in the spring and summer of 2007 of over 1,200 chief financial officers (CFOs) from 79 countries. The survey results reveal some interesting insights into the current practice of enterprise risk management (ERM), and provide a point of comparison with Cutter Consortium's State of Risk Management Practice survey, which I conducted in 2006.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2007/erm071206.html

MRP-as-a-Service: An Alternative Way to Execute Models for Business Processes

29 Nov 2007 16:04:20 GMT

Lee, Hyoung-Gon; Schuster, Edmund W. | E-Mail Advisors | 29 November 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

With the current interest in SaaS, it is just a matter of time before material requirement planning systems (MRP) become an Internet-based service rather than a dedicated software application hosted on local computers. Eventually, it might become obsolete to use packaged software for management of manufacturing processes and other applications in business. While packaged software will be around for many years into the future, peak sales might have been reached with the most recent economic expansion. For the US market, where the growth of manufacturing has slowed considerably and the idea of MRP is a mature technology, SaaS represents an innovative way of reducing operation costs.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071129.html

Software Productivity -- Bad News and Good News

21 Nov 2007 14:54:11 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 21 November 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management

First, the bad news: a month or two ago, I was talking to one of my good friends, who also happens to be one of the world's great students of software productivity. I asked him why it was that there was very little discussion in the press about software productivity. His response was that, from his data, there hadn't been very much improvement over the last decade or so. He said that probably three-fourths of the organizations he'd studied hadn't improved very much, if at all. Of the other 25% or so, roughly half had increased their productivity and the other half had actually decreased theirs. I found this intriguing but not very surprising, considering some of the development organizations that I've encountered over the last few years. My friend suggested that the most likely reason for this lack of productivity increase was the dramatic increase in software complexity.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071121.html

Holiday Risks -- A Look at the Implications of Common Annual Events

21 Nov 2007 14:51:16 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 21 November 2007 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business-IT Strategies

In our organizations, we have what I like to call "holiday risks." These are the risks that we can anticipate like clockwork ... and yet, we marvel at their occurrence. They become components of the organizational culture, and still, year after year, we clean up the respective mess. What can we or should we do about these types of risks? First, we should identify them. Second, we should ensure that the strategies we apply to them are consistent. And third, we should communicate our game plans to others.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2007/erm071121.html

IBM Buys Cognos: Yet Another BI Juggernaut Is Formed

20 Nov 2007 14:47:55 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 20 November 2007 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

IBM's latest announcement that it plans to buy BI vendor Cognos, Inc. for approximately US $5 billion continues efforts by the major enterprise players to bolster their positions in the lucrative market for BI and analytics through strategic acquisitions. IBM's acquisition of Cognos is key to IBM remaining a major player in the BI market following on the heels of SAP AG's recent acquisition of Business Objects and Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2007/bia071120.html

The Inventory Hub

15 Nov 2007 19:38:23 GMT

Schuster, Edmund W. | E-Mail Advisors | 15 November 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

One of the strengths of the US economy is the diversification of industries along with free markets that function well enough, if not always at 100% efficiency. The variety of products produced, ranging from branded consumer goods to energy resources, is truly impressive. Often Americans take for granted the scope of the US economy.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071115.html

Steve Jobs: Architecture, Platforms, and the Big Picture, Part 2

8 Nov 2007 19:27:21 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 08 November 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture

In my last Advisor (see "Steve Jobs: Architecture, Platforms, and the Big Picture," 25 October 2007), I talked about Steve Jobs and "closed architectures." A number of things have transpired in just two weeks. The first is Apple's announcement of its developer environment for the iPhone. Also, the developer community has been hard at work opening up (aka hacking) other Apple crown jewels. The most recent example of this activity is the announcement that some developers had found a way to run Apple's latest operating system release, code-named Leopard, on a plain old PC.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071108.html

ERM: The Importance of Aligning Management of Risk Objectives and Risk Management Processes

8 Nov 2007 19:25:31 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 08 November 2007 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

To create an effective enterprise risk management process -- one where risks are going to be managed as a system -- you need to have both your enterprise management of risk strategy and your risk management processes in alignment. The management of risk strategy determines the course of action you want to pursue in relationship to your risk/reward appetite; your risk management processes determine how well you can manage on a day-to-day basis the risky decisions that come along with pursuing the course of action you have embarked upon. What is happening at two of the world's leading companies -- Toyota and Boeing -- demonstrates what happens when they start to become misaligned.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2007/erm071108.html

How Social Computing Is Redefining Content

1 Nov 2007 21:11:51 GMT

Choate, Mark | Executive Updates | 01 November 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Content-oriented Web sites have moved in a clear progression from a traditional publishing model to something completely different. First the publisher owned the platform (the printing press or the content management system) and the content, all of which were highly controlled by a select few. Social media sites like Facebook and others have abandoned this old-media approach by not only providing a platform for the distribution of user-generated content, but by opening up the platform itself to the creation of user-generated functionality.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2007/bttu0721.html

The Two-Megapixel Eye

1 Oct 2007 21:06:43 GMT

DeMarco, Tom; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 October 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The trend toward higher-resolution displays promises to be expensive but unstoppable. Its effect on the desktop may pass unnoticed, but it is likely to cause serious retrofit of anything handheld.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2007/10/index.html

Get Ready to Embrace Web 3.0

1 Aug 2007 21:02:48 GMT

Murugesan, San | Executive Reports | 01 August 2007 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

2.0 has had a significant impact on both society and business, so what's next in the Web's evolution? What else? Web 3.0! Though views vary on what Web 3.0 is, or might be, and on what it might offer, Web 3.0 promises another Internet revolution. It's time for enterprises -- both IT and non-IT -- to begin harnessing Web 3.0 to their advantage. This Executive Report by San Murugesan explores the Web 3.0 arena, examines its prospects and potential, and helps you ride the next Web wave.

http://www.cutter.com/bia/fulltext/reports/2007/08/index.html

Tweaking Business Technology Leadership: What Academia Can Learn from Executive Education

15 Oct 2007 20:59:24 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Updates | 15 October 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business-IT Strategies

This Executive Update looks at the changes that were made to the Villanova University undergraduate MIS, MBA, and Executive MBA (EMBA) programs in response to lessons learned from the development and delivery of a corporate executive education program in business technology leadership. This is an unusual curriculum development model since executive education programs are usually derived from academic programs, not the other way around. In this instance, however, several academic courses were designed and modified directly in response to a corporate executive education program developed by Rohm and Haas, a global specialty chemicals company.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2007/bttu0720.html