Today's Internet is still predominantly "wired" for a browsing or surfing mode.

Today's Internet is still predominantly "wired" for a browsing or surfing mode.

In June-July 2009, Cutter Consortium conducted a survey that asked 79 end-user organizations about their various BI and data warehousing efforts, including the use of various on-demand/cloud-based BI and data warehousing solutions.1

Cutter Consortium's recent Latin America Summit was a terrific opportunity for CIOs and summit speakers to discuss what constitutes "good" IT.

Sometimes I'm late to the party, but I always show up, say, "fashionably late." So, to keep up with other Cutter practice areas, here are my predictions for what will be facing enterprise architects in 2010.

If you are considering outsourcing, then your evolving business case must address at least three go/no-go decisions:

Your initial business case is based on best estimates, so your first go/no-go decision determines whether a competitive process is a go.

If you are considering outsourcing, then your evolving business case must address at least three go/no-go decisions:

Your initial business case is based on best estimates, so your first go/no-go decision determines whether a competitive process is a go.

A recent BI and data warehousing survey, conducted by data warehousing and analytics vendor Kognitio and solutions provider Baseline Consulting, has received a fair amount of attention in the IT press. The most controversial findings have to do with the value of analyzing data obtained from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on.

Agility is not reaching far enough into organizations. Too many agile development initiatives fall far short of their potential. Too many organizations have a few successful agile projects, but fail to sustain agility. Success on a few, or even more than a few, projects doesn't translate to wider acceptance of agile principles and practices in the organization.

Agility is not reaching far enough into organizations. Too many agile development initiatives fall far short of their potential. Too many organizations have a few successful agile projects, but fail to sustain agility. Success on a few, or even more than a few, projects doesn't translate to wider acceptance of agile principles and practices in the organization.

Pure agile methods in real organizations do not work in practice. This is not because agility is not valuable. Far from it: project sponsors and other business stakeholders are seeking out agility together with development professionals.

CIOs are warming up to the idea of semantic technologies -- IT artifacts capable of making explicit the meaning contained in the relations among information objects. When properly elicited and structured, relational and semantic technologies can help to expose and maximize a certain degree of "intelligence" that we seek from our systems.

CIOs are warming up to the idea of semantic technologies -- IT artifacts capable of making explicit the meaning contained in the relations among information objects. When properly elicited and structured, relational and semantic technologies can help to expose and maximize a certain degree of "intelligence" that we seek from our systems.

In 1968, an ecologist named Garrett Hardin published an article in Science titled "The Tragedy of the Commons."1 This article described a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently and rationally, driven by their own self-interest, will ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen.

There's no lower-hanging fruit than thin fruit. The adoption of Web-enabled smartphones is outpacing just about every technology in history.1 As form factors have improved, so has functionality. Lots of assumptions have been challenged along the way. For example, how many of us believed that no one would watch video on a one-inch-by-one-inch screen?

Back in October, I wrote that the question of whether the cloud model is reliable enough for corporate IT would not be answered soon, adding that no amount of reassurances from service providers or IT analysts would really settle the question (see "Viability of the Cloud Model Still Up in the Air," 20 October 2009).

Back in October, I wrote that the question of whether the cloud model is reliable enough for corporate IT would not be answered soon, adding that no amount of reassurances from service providers or IT analysts would really settle the question (see "Viability of the Cloud Model Still Up in the Air," 20 October 2009).

Back in October, I wrote that the question of whether the cloud model is reliable enough for corporate IT would not be answered soon, adding that no amount of reassurances from service providers or IT analysts would really settle the question (see "Viability of the Cloud Model Still Up in the Air," 20 October 2009).

Cloud computing continues to gain momentum as a description of service offerings based on a virtualized data center infrastructure and provided over the Internet on an as-needed basis. Public clouds, such as Amazon EC2, first brought attention to this model, followed by private clouds built within an organization, as exemplified by IBM's Blue Cloud initiative.

In this series of Advisors, we are exploring some typical problems traditionally trained managers run into when their firm begins to use agile.

There are two major strategic bets that went bad in the news this week that are interesting from an enterprise risk management perspective.

There are two major strategic bets that went bad in the news this week that are interesting from an enterprise risk management perspective.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to make resolutions, and the beginning of a new decade is an even better time. The resolutions that I'm going to concentrate on in this Advisor (I reserve the right to add to it later) include a number of words and phrases that I believe confuse those of us in enterprise architecture and/or systems development as well as our clients.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to make resolutions, and the beginning of a new decade is an even better time. The resolutions that I'm going to concentrate on in this Advisor (I reserve the right to add to it later) include a number of words and phrases that I believe confuse those of us in enterprise architecture and/or systems development as well as our clients.

In many organizations, IT has become crucial in the support, sustainability, and growth of the business.