The shift from local to distributed, from physical to truly digital, is inevitable. Maintaining digital infrastructures, however commoditized, is not core to any of the beneficiaries of the Web, just as running one's own power plant makes no sense. Preteens, adolescents, and young adults don't even think about these things.

As a CIO or enterprise architecture (EA) manager, you will have experienced that some of your enterprise architects seem to get along just fine with the user community, but others seem to run into arguments with their customers time and time again. These are problems that you have to solve, committing time and prestige to fix things while you do not understand why things got out of control in the first place.

If you have ever learned to fire a rifle, you will know that initially it isn't about hitting the target. It's about being consistent when you miss. Learning how to aim means learning how to avoid spraying your bullets all over the place.

There was an interesting and well-written column in the New York Times editorial section a few weeks ago called "Sleepwalking Through September," by Doug Glanville (20 August 2009).

The product team is a cross-functional group of managers and/or individual contributors who are collectively responsible for managing the product's lifecycle. The size of the product team will vary depending on the role of the product manager, as described previously in this series.

In my last Advisor, "SOA and the Cloud: Getting Past the Hype" (19 August 2009), I introduced the main categories of cloud computing. This week, I'll cover some of the product innovations taking place in those categories.

Judging from the wildly enthusiastic international crowd of 1,400 attending the Agile2009 conference in Chicago, Illinois, USA, last week, XP, Scrum, and agile software development methodologies are becoming more mainstream. After years of pilot projects, agile is finally gaining acceptance as a legitimate approach to software development in the business community.

Outsourcing represents another way of managing the costs of an activity. Whether we outsource the mowing of our lawn to avoid the cost of owning and operating a lawn mower, or if we outsource the costs of developing an IT service, the result ends up in a net savings of direct and indirect costs.

Outsourcing represents another way of managing the costs of an activity. Whether we outsource the mowing of our lawn to avoid the cost of owning and operating a lawn mower, or if we outsource the costs of developing an IT service, the result ends up in a net savings of direct and indirect costs.

Data integration vendor Informatica Corporation announced it is buying complex event processing (CEP) software vendor Agent Logic. Financial terms of the deal were not revealed. Still, this development is significant because it will combine the capabilities of Informatica's data integration tools with Agent Logic's rules-based CEP platform.

Different people understand cloud computing in different ways. Some see it as a communications enabler. Some see it as the source of open source and proprietary applications. Some see it as a path to technology independence. Others see it as extreme outsourcing. So what is it? My working definition comes from our colleagues at Wikipedia, who tell us that cloud computing:

I'm not sure that I agree with the notion that innovation (creativity) is going to collapse in these hard times just because of a lack of money (see "Code Blue for IT Innovation," Cutter Business Technology Trends Council Opinion, Vol. 9, No. 12).

I'm not sure that I agree with the notion that innovation (creativity) is going to collapse in these hard times just because of a lack of money (see "Code Blue for IT Innovation," Cutter Business Technology Trends Council Opinion, Vol. 9, No. 12).

A couple of recent client engagements, with very large companies, reminded me about the fixation on process in many companies. Having used agile, iterative methods for so many years, I lost track of how pervasive process orientation can be in some organizations.

There was a time in the early 1990s when a good laptop computer cost upwards of US $4,000. This was for a computer with a 10-inch screen, four or eight MB of memory, and a 100-MB disk. Communications for this computer were limited to a slow-speed, dial-up line.

There was a time in the early 1990s when a good laptop computer cost upwards of US $4,000. This was for a computer with a 10-inch screen, four or eight MB of memory, and a 100-MB disk. Communications for this computer were limited to a slow-speed, dial-up line.

There was a time in the early 1990s when a good laptop computer cost upwards of US $4,000. This was for a computer with a 10-inch screen, four or eight MB of memory, and a 100-MB disk. Communications for this computer were limited to a slow-speed, dial-up line.

"Your strategic and corporate reporting will be as effective as your operational system's performance management is" -- every organization or enterprise understands this one-liner. The question is how many work toward making sure this happens.

Cutter is paying attention to IT governance in 2009. The September Cutter Benchmark Review (CBR) reports the results of the recent Cutter IT Governance Survey. The December Cutter IT Journal, which we're editing, is about IT governance. Recent CIO surveys done by others place IT governance in the top echelon of concerns.

As I pointed out in last week's Advisor (see "Complex Event Processing," 26 August 2009), complex event processing (CEP) remains an emerging technology that holds the promise of enabling companies to increase operational efficiency by providing a means to identify and interpret the effect of seemingly unrelated events

Someone has an "ah-ha!" moment. She has read an article, talked with a friend, or heard a great presentation at a conference. "I think we should be doing agile in our company," she says. Some companies, particularly small ones, can simply try agile on their next project without much fuss. In large companies, it is usually a lot harder.

I've been talking with friends and colleagues over the last few days about which current IT technologies and concepts will still be in vogue two years from now. Of course, "Web 2.0" immediately came up.

I've been talking with friends and colleagues over the last few days about which current IT technologies and concepts will still be in vogue two years from now. Of course, "Web 2.0" immediately came up.

The recent announcement by BI vendor MicroStrategy, Inc., that its BI toolset (MicroStrategy 9) has been certified to run on the VMware virtualization platform has me thinking more about the possible benefits and issues of operating BI systems in virtualization environments.

Leadership skills are tested when times are tough, when business is down, and when morale is low. So how do you motivate your people after 20% of their colleagues have been laid off? How do you focus their attention on future prosperity when the future seems so uncertain?