Data integration tools vendor Informatica Corporation is buying Identity Systems, Inc. (ISI), a provider of identity search, matching, and resolution software, for approximately US $85 million.

Business process management (BPM), also called business process modeling, is a hot topic these days: as a standalone solution; as the impetus for the customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) categories; and perhaps most importantly, as a critical enabling technology for the orchestration function in service-oriented architecture (SOA).

In working with a number of software companies over the years, I've come to find a single metric that is very effective in determining how "agile" these organizations are: the length of the tail. The tail is the time period from "code slush" (true code freezes are rare) or "feature freeze" to RTM (release to manufacturing).

It seems as if every time you turn on the television there's an advertisement regarding identity theft or a newscast about how someone lost their laptop containing the personal records of hundreds of thousands of people.

It seems as if every time you turn on the television there's an advertisement regarding identity theft or a newscast about how someone lost their laptop containing the personal records of hundreds of thousands of people.

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.

Example:

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.

Example:

I frequently read articles about outsourcing, benefits, risks, business value, challenges, best practices, concerns, and so on. I wonder whether this information, most of it around success stories, refers to a reality exclusive to American companies, or whether we have the same environment in Latin America.

I frequently read articles about outsourcing, benefits, risks, business value, challenges, best practices, concerns, and so on. I wonder whether this information, most of it around success stories, refers to a reality exclusive to American companies, or whether we have the same environment in Latin America.

I'm a strong proponent that everything we do in an IT organization should be driven by business needs and issues. One reason many IT managers are out of sync with their business client is that they haven't really established what the business needs and issues are.

Awhile back, Cutter Senior Consultant Mike Rosen and I wrote an Executive Report (see "Enterprise Architecture: It's Not Just for IT Anymore," Vol. 9, No.

Mainstream, centralized business intelligence (BI) efforts can be overly expensive and slow to respond to rapidly evolving business requirements. These deficiencies have led to poorly served and unsatisfied users. However, serious negative consequences would result from the complete abandonment of central, integrated control of an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) and BI. We need to throw out the bureaucratic bathwater yet still keep the "EDW baby," and the best way to do that is to apply agile techniques and philosophies.

What the business intelligence (BI) architecture will look like in the future depends upon the business drivers for BI as well as the direction the technology is going to take. The data within the organization is increasing exponentially, and the demand for real-time analytics is greater than ever. The process of standardizing and integrating enterprise data in a single data warehouse (DW) is an ever-increasing challenge given the high data growth and rapidly evolving business processes in organizations.

Data warehouse (DW), data mart, operational data store (ODS), and extract-transform-load (ETL) are the terms that come to mind when business intelligence (BI) or analytical reports are thought of. After all, these techniques have been around for a long time and are well proven. These architectures are very handy when there are too many silo databases, technology platforms, or proprietary applications in an organization.

My objective in this article is to look at the discussion of BI with or without DW from a business rather than a technical or operational perspective. As we know, it is all too easy to let technical issues become the primary basis for IT decisions, and this isn't necessarily the only important perspective -- not least because it can bias the decision process from the perspective of business management ("Oh boy, there go the technocrats again!").

Like other metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs) require modification to remain accurate. Reasons for modifying KPIs can range from the implementation of new business processes and corporate objectives and strategies to responses to changing market conditions or business environments.

I've been working with many companies lately whose IT systems are dominated by enterprise resource planning (ERP). This is not surprising, since an ERP system is an essential part of most IT portfolios today. In many organizations, the ERP system contributes as much as 70% of the total IT capability.

If you start with agile management, you will hit a point of frustration eventually: the more reliable your planning process becomes, the more frustrating are its results. You will find that your real velocity is way beyond what you would like it to be -- and probably beyond what you promised to your stakeholders.

I recently spent some time on hold with -- and occasionally actually speaking with -- "technical support" representatives.

I recently spent some time on hold with -- and occasionally actually speaking with -- "technical support" representatives.

The expectations for our leaders have never been larger. More than ever before, the essentials of leadership include the courageous use of human experience and the individual desire to create a difference and succeed in a world of rising complexity.

The expectations for our leaders have never been larger. More than ever before, the essentials of leadership include the courageous use of human experience and the individual desire to create a difference and succeed in a world of rising complexity.

IT can be the facilitator of efficiency and sustainability within a corporation. By driving sustainable practices from the bottom up, IT can help build a better, greener company around itself. There are some simple policy modifications that can be taken immediately to reduce the environmental impact of IT's use in the company, and then there are some cultural changes that take longer to enact.

In the education business, there is a recognized theory of cognitive development that is based on the work of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget and his study of children. Piaget identified four stages of development. Each represents the understanding of reality during that stage, but the last is an inadequate approximation of reality.

I have met many engineers, programmers, administrators, and others who have great imagination (I used to be one of them; sometimes I stray back into that fold). Ideas come to them, and they try those ideas. Sometimes, some of those brilliant ideas work right now in the system we are building. Often, however, that isn't the case. Poor odds don't deter these imaginative people. Close oversight is necessary; well, maybe not necessary, as there are other choices.