With this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review we focus on a very tangible problem that all modern organizations face: maximizing their investments in Web site design. How to maximize the ROI of a Web presence is an important challenge for organizations since, today, the Web is a key customer-interaction touch point for all but the very small firms. Web sites are one of the primary engines through which customers transact with an organization, access support services, and engage in after-sales service.

Web sites are a major avenue by which companies communicate with their customers. Billions of dollars of goods and services are exchanged via Web sales each year. In fact, in 2007, more than US $160 billion in merchandise alone was sold online.1 In addition to sales, however, Web sites also serve the function of projecting the company's corporate image and providing consumers with basic company and product or service information.

When it comes to assessing the quality of a Web site, what really matters? Unlike diamonds, Web sites don't have a standard like the 4Cs to assess how they compare to other Web sites. The assessment is a far more subjective one. What we have instead is a set of terms such as usability, performance, and accessibility that we have all heard of but that lack precise definitions that we can use to measure the quality of a Web site. So, given this lack of clear definitions, how do we as an industry assess if we have produced a high-quality Web site?

This issue of CBR was very interesting to me personally as I have done some work focusing on the evaluation of Web site interaction value and ROI. Our contributors, however, have a wealth of experience and depth of knowledge in the actual design of a high-quality Web presence. They thus could explain what drives a high level of Web site interaction value as well as offer valuable guidelines for the implementation of a high-quality Web presence.

This survey investigates what is considered important in Web sites, what has actually been done to ensure Web site quality, and what level of accessibility for disabled users has been attained. Fifty-two percent of the 96 respondents are headquartered or based in North America, 21% in Europe, 13% in Australia/Pacific, 9% in Asia, and the remaining 5% in South America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Many people are aware of collective intelligence (CI) and the exciting prospects associated with it; however, fully understanding the complexity and underlying dynamics that shape CI takes quite a bit of reading and research.

Only a few centuries ago -- a small fragment of time in the history of humanity -- the printing process dramatically changed the way knowledge was recorded and exchanged, facilitating the spread of technological progress.

Virtual worlds are immature and rife with problems, from service outages to avatar harassment. Though they offer great promise, they aren't yet ready for fielding mainstream applications. Many early adopters saw no substantial benefit and have beat a hasty retreat.

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking

-- Albert Einstein

Being a global enterprise with a large portfolio of services and solutions has some distinct advantages, but it is not without its challenges. At IBM, we sell and deliver products and solutions across the globe, at every level of the organization, and to almost every size of business. As a result, we are continually trying to expand our reach and improve our ability to communicate and collaborate with clients.

Video games have become a huge part of not just the entertainment marketplace, but of life today. Anyone who has kids can testify to the power of video games to engross their child's attention for hours (and hours) upon end. And it's not just the preteen set. On college campuses, in coffeehouses, in airports, and, yes, in office cubicles, people of all ages are increasingly playing video games. All this activity adds up to a huge market.

Even though the use of virtual worlds has increased rapidly during the past year, these environments remain in a very embryonic state. Technical issues of platform stability and security continue to result in service unreliability and interruptions. As they're currently implemented, virtual worlds don't offer high levels of security assurance. Issues such as identity management, confidentiality, and integrity of communications are not addressed adequately. This article takes a closer look at the issues and challenges facing virtual worlds.

In this Executive Report, Michael Mah and Mike Lunt share observations about real-world agile projects and how they measure up against waterfall and other projects in terms of productivity, schedule, and quality. This was made possible by juxtaposing them against trends from a contemporary worldwide database of more than 7,500 completed projects. Specifically, we look at more than 20 agile releases from five companies.

Are agile projects more successful in the sense that they deliver more functionality with fewer defects, in the words of XP visionary and Cutter Senior Consultant Kent Beck? Specifically, how do agile projects compare to waterfall or plan-based projects? If your company is considering switching to agile, what might you expect? What have other companies experienced?

At the heart of risk management and governance of service-oriented applications is the need to achieve agreed and measurable quality of service (QoS) levels.

At the heart of risk management and governance of service-oriented applications is the need to achieve agreed and measurable quality of service (QoS) levels.

This Executive Update is designed to help you understand the outsourcing lifecycle in terms of bargaining power as well as the investment you need to make at the right times to manage its ebbs and flows.

This Executive Update is designed to help you understand the outsourcing lifecycle in terms of bargaining power as well as the investment you need to make at the right times to manage its ebbs and flows.

This Executive Update is designed to help you understand the outsourcing lifecycle in terms of bargaining power as well as the investment you need to make at the right times to manage its ebbs and flows.

This Executive Update is about implementing outsourcing. We will discuss the analysis of the situation we intend to outsource, the enforcement of service-level agreements (SLAs) and operation-level agreements (OLAs) between areas, the contractual aspects that shelter us, and the development of requests for information (RFIs) as well as the preparation of requests for proposal (RFPs). Finally, related to implementation is an element frequently forgotten: the possibility to reconsider the current internal organizational structure.

IT strategy

Those organizations with years of application development and no application cleanup are discovering the large cost of "application gridlock."

In most organizations adopting agile methods, the techniques used for program and portfolio management are still predictive and "waterfall": yearly budgeting cycles and capacity planning, and heavily matrixed resource management. It's no surprise then that despite adopting agile methods for their projects, many organizations have yet to exploit their full benefits at the portfolio level.

The odds of that? That's like being struck by lightning.

Is it? Is it really?

The English language is rife with metaphors. We do comparisons and analogies on a ritual basis. However, when the topic arises, I'm reminded of a college mate of mine, Jack Shepherd, who used to challenge similes on a regular basis.