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.

As I head off to the annual Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, California, USA, this week, I can't seem to stop thinking about what Oracle's proposed acquisition of middleware maker BEA Systems, Inc. would mean for Oracle, end-user organizations, and the market in general. It appears that I'm not the only one, as the topic is definitely on other attendees' minds, too.

Not long ago, the Wall Street Journal announced that joining management by objective and total quality management as approaches that have marched in the management discipline hit parade is a new methodology called management by data (see "Now, It's Business By Data, but Numbers Still Can't Tell Future," by Scott Thurm).

Not long ago, the Wall Street Journal announced that joining management by objective and total quality management as approaches that have marched in the management discipline hit parade is a new methodology called management by data (see "Now, It's Business By Data, but Numbers Still Can't Tell Future," by Scott Thurm).

The data steward role is not a business role in the "take customer orders" or "prepare invoices" sense. It is clearly a role that bleeds over into what was traditionally the IT space. IT and business must come together, and the data steward is one of many roles that will help accomplish that.

The majority of organizations using on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions and services maintain copies on-site of the data generated or used by their on-demand software.

The majority of organizations using on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions and services maintain copies on-site of the data generated or used by their on-demand software.

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.

As more organizations face transitions to agile methods and those transitions involve larger segments of those organizations, the need for transition or transformation strategies increases.

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.

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.

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.

At first glance, the title might not sound especially sexy: Architecture and Patterns for IT Service Management, Resource Planning, and Governance: Making Shoes for the Cobbler's Children, by Charles T. Betz.

Last month we began this three-part series on a Cutter survey on IT budget and costing practices (see "IT Budgeting/Costing Is a Mess -- and Hinders IT Governance, Part 1," 26 September 2007; for more on Cutter's survey, see the Cutter Benchmark Review, August 2007). The results indicated that IT budgeting and costing practices, generally, are a mess.

In our most recent survey on outsourcing (see "Outsourcing Insights Redux: Part I -- Truths and Perceptions"), we asked respondents how they evaluate supplier project estimates on applications development and maintenance projects.

In our most recent survey on outsourcing (see "Outsourcing Insights Redux: Part I -- Truths and Perceptions"), we asked respondents how they evaluate supplier project estimates on applications development and maintenance projects.

First I must share a bias. To be effective, IT departments must be no more than half a step ahead of the business partners it supports. If IT has the temerity to be more than this elusive half step, it will be accused of arrogance and be seen as disconnected or following its own agenda. If IT is seen to be lagging the business, the fate is equally unpalatable.

There's a "new" data warehousing database vendor that deserves a closer look: ParAccel, Inc. ParAccel has developed a high-speed, columnar database -- utilizing a massively parallel (shared-nothing) grid architecture running on standard hardware -- that is optimized for data warehousing, BI reporting, and operational analytic processing.

The world is moving at a fast pace, and globalization is increasing. Financial markets are interlocked and the role of information becomes more important with each passing day.

The world is moving at a fast pace, and globalization is increasing. Financial markets are interlocked and the role of information becomes more important with each passing day.

The world is moving at a fast pace, and globalization is increasing. Financial markets are interlocked and the role of information becomes more important with each passing day.

collaboration = innovation

Declare trust? Come on, get serious! I can't declare that you'll be trustworthy. You have to show me that.

True. And before I can show you that, you have to show me that you can be trusted with my trust. And so on, and on.

collaboration = innovation

Declare trust? Come on, get serious! I can't declare that you'll be trustworthy. You have to show me that.

True. And before I can show you that, you have to show me that you can be trusted with my trust. And so on, and on.

For people to take action -- such as to move to a new software development methodology, they have to care. Feelings inspire people to act. We make people care by appealing to things that matter to them.

I ask managers who have been burned by mixed or bad results and have turned a jaundiced eye to the bombardment of ideas on how to elevate IT management performance to now pause and, with an open mind, explore the virtues of information technology asset management (ITAM). What they should find are many common-sense concepts about how to optimize their large, complex portfolios of IT by treating them as the assets that they are.