Enterprise search -- the ability for employees to use a search engine to locate and retrieve relevant information pertinent to their jobs as easily as it is for them to dredge up the latest consumer information on the Internet -- continues to generate a lot of attention in the press and at conferences.

Enterprise search -- the ability for employees to use a search engine to locate and retrieve relevant information pertinent to their jobs as easily as it is for them to dredge up the latest consumer information on the Internet -- continues to generate a lot of attention in the press and at conferences.

We're all familiar with glib, well-dressed consultants. As this implies, however, we do not always have a positive image of consultants. The fact is that "good" (versus "evil") consultants are extremely important contributors to the overall business technology relationship.

We're all familiar with glib, well-dressed consultants. As this implies, however, we do not always have a positive image of consultants. The fact is that "good" (versus "evil") consultants are extremely important contributors to the overall business technology relationship.

Anyone with basic project management exposure has learned about the "Iron Triangle" of trade-offs between scope, schedule, and resources. You can't manipulate one of these variables without affecting the others, and it is not feasible to fix all three during project visioning.

Whenever any organization says that problems with an IT project effort are "99% fixed" -- as US Airways President Scott Kirby did a few months ago when describing the then less-than-stellar introduction of its "integrated" reservation system -- my risk antennae start to tingle (for more background, see "Flying Is So Muc

Whenever any organization says that problems with an IT project effort are "99% fixed" -- as US Airways President Scott Kirby did a few months ago when describing the then less-than-stellar introduction of its "integrated" reservation system -- my risk antennae start to tingle (for more background, see "Flying Is So Muc

collaboration = innovation

Here's the mantra: "Plan so that you can do what you want; prepare so that you can do whatever you need."

collaboration = innovation

Here's the mantra: "Plan so that you can do what you want; prepare so that you can do whatever you need."

It's time for my annual report on the Cutter Summit, which took place 29 April - 2 May 2007 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Each year the Summit has a specific theme, which for 2007 was innovation.

Companies hope to fulfill the goals of new market entry, enhanced customer management, and product development through strategic sourcing arrangements. This evolution represents a corporate transformation as profound as the emergence of the multinational early in the 20th century. What role will strategic sourcing play within this transformational evolution?

Companies hope to fulfill the goals of new market entry, enhanced customer management, and product development through strategic sourcing arrangements. This evolution represents a corporate transformation as profound as the emergence of the multinational early in the 20th century. What role will strategic sourcing play within this transformational evolution?

Print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced about five exabytes1 of new information in 2002. Ninety-two percent of the new information was stored on magnetic media, mostly in hard disks. [Lyman, Peter, and Hal R. Varian.

Last week, I discussed business process management vendor TIBCO Software, Inc.'s purchase of BI analytics vendor Spotfire (see "TIBCO Buys Spotfire: BI to Become Just Another Process?" 8 May 2007). The week before, it was Business Objects' acquisition of business performance management vendor Cartesis S.A.

Today, business process management (BPM) represents both a healthy cut of IT investment and the shining path for organizations that believe that designing and implementing new business processes or reengineering old ones set the direction for significantly improved enterprise performance. So fixated on the capabilities of the technology are some organizations that they overlook the tight relationship between the product features and the management and governance issues surrounding their use.

In this Executive Update, we propose a three-level enterprise architecture that allows organizations to manage their computer and information assets -- hardware, software, processes, and data -- based on the Web services model. We denote these levels as resource, application, and strategic.

Last year, several business intelligence (BI) vendors -- including IBI, Cognos, and Business Objects -- introduced new products that combine the reporting and analysis capabilities of their BI tools with the ease of use of Internet search engines.

"Sixty-five percent of software features are rarely or never used" [1]. This statistic is alarming to corporate leaders. The wasted costs spent on developing and marketing these unused features comes to mind immediately. Most experienced project leaders, however, are not surprised.

Today, business change -- meaning changes in conditions that force organizations to rethink planning assumptions, business models, and goals -- occurs with such pace and force that management experts are rallying around the simple proposition that future success might depend on an organization's capacity to successfully adapt to these changes. In fact, this ability to adapt to change seems to be just as important to business success as are other factors, including innovation and customer service.

Today, business change -- meaning changes in conditions that force organizations to rethink planning assumptions, business models, and goals -- occurs with such pace and force that management experts are rallying around the simple proposition that future success might depend on an organization's capacity to successfully adapt to these changes. In fact, this ability to adapt to change seems to be just as important to business success as are other factors, including innovation and customer service.

This Executive Update is the sixth in a series that examines information and communications technology (ICT) outsourcing and its various configuration options. The series is based on a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 73 organizations in 25 countries across the globe. 1

This Executive Update is the sixth in a series that examines information and communications technology (ICT) outsourcing and its various configuration options. The series is based on a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 73 organizations in 25 countries across the globe. 1

Any discussion of inventiveness always brings me back to the phone call privacy problem in Budapest several years ago -- it is an interesting case study. At the time, we were worried that anyone with minimal technical skills could figure out how to listen in on calls being made over the new wireless phone network that we were installing.

Any discussion of inventiveness always brings me back to the phone call privacy problem in Budapest several years ago -- it is an interesting case study. At the time, we were worried that anyone with minimal technical skills could figure out how to listen in on calls being made over the new wireless phone network that we were installing.

In my last Trends Advisor (see "Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security," 26 April 2007), I talked about privacy, confidentiality, and security and how easy it was for me to find an old friend with the help of Google. Since that column, Google has announced an agreement to access the public records of four large US states.