One bit of news that seems to have slipped in under the radar screen is Informatica Corporation's announcement that it is buying unstructured and semi-structured data integration vendor Itemfield for US $55 million in cash. With this acquisition, Informatica now has the technology to transform its flagship PowerCenter product into a "universal data integration platform" that can handle structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data integration and transformation. From a market perspective, this is important.

The agile movement is now more than five years old, measured from the authoring of the Agile Manifesto. In this time frame, many organizations have implemented agile methods, with many more planning agile transitions.

The original or traditional role of the information technology (IT) organization within companies was one of a service function, a cost center whose purpose was to allow the other, money-making departments within the company to perform their functions more effectively. "The IT guy" was the person you called when you needed to install new software on your PC, when you had trouble connecting to the network, or when you wanted to add hardware to your system.

How do you transition in your role as information technology (IT) manager to a strategic business leader within your organization? The accompanying Executive Report examines today's business realities that define a new role for IT within the corporation and discusses a paradigm for greater integration between the information and business goals of companies.

IS departments commonly face three types of scenarios as they assist their parent organizations with mergers or the acquisition of a targeted business. These scenarios, which cover the gamut from naive to sophisticated, are listed below:

IS departments commonly face three types of scenarios as they assist their parent organizations with mergers or the acquisition of a targeted business. These scenarios, which cover the gamut from naive to sophisticated, are listed below:

Reference model: A structure which allows the modules and interfaces of a system to be described in a consistent manner. [5]

Reference model: A standard definitive document or conceptual representation of a system or process. [2]

Business reference models (BRMs) are becoming a major tool that large organizations use to help them rapidly understand the current business processes, benchmark themselves against industry (global) best practices, and reengineer their businesses. BRMs provide a new kind of framework for looking at an organization's value chains, value streams, and major business processes without having to engage in full-blown, time-consuming business process modeling activities.

In December, we attended one of OMG's regular technical meetings, in part to see how its Model Driven Architecture (MDA) initiative is doing. We certainly can't claim impartiality in this respect as we recently published a book entitled Real-Life MDA: Solving Business Problems with Model Driven Architecture [1], in order to help accelerate the adoption of MDA in the IT industry. Nonetheless, we can safely say that, based on what we saw, MDA is rapidly becoming pretty mainstream.

In this issue, we tackle the following question: how are we doing with the acquisition and retention of mainframe skills in the face of the looming mass retirement of baby boomers?

"The mainframe is dead." How many times in the last 25 years have you heard that assertion? Maybe you're not a Fortune 500 CIO, but you have a bank account, you make travel reservations, and you file health insurance claims on a mainframe as a customer. We've heard about the demise of the mainframe since the 1980s but, surprise -- it's kicking. IBM recently announced that mainframe sales are up 10% with a 25% gain in the third quarter of 2006 [1].

There are a number of reasons -- aside from an abiding personal interest -- this topic has been selected for attention. Among them:

With this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we set out to take stock of organizations' preparedness toward what is shaping up as a looming mainframe skills and knowledge crisis. We solicited contributions from two experts with unparalleled depth of understanding and experience with the management of IT skills. Our academic contribution on this installment was provided by Kate Kaiser, Associate Professor of Information Technology at Marquette University (USA).

This survey explored the extent of the need for mainframe skills, practices to ensure IT capabilities for mainframe support, and possible alternatives to mainframe support. Forty percent of the 125 respondents hold senior management/policy making or IS/IT management titles, with project management, software engineering/programming, and consulting being among the other job titles reported. Fifty percent of responding organizations are headquartered in North America, 26% in Asia/Pacific, and 14% in Europe, with the remainder in South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

The job of the modern CIO is tough. CIOs face tremendous pressure from their customers along many dimensions; the following are just a few of the many that come to mind:

Everyone wants their infrastructure applications, such as e-mail, to be reliable, easy to use, and always available.

Users of operational systems pressure the CIO to let them select the operational system that they think best meets their discrete needs.

The job of the modern CIO is tough. CIOs face tremendous pressure from their customers along many dimensions; the following are just a few of the many that come to mind:

Everyone wants their infrastructure applications, such as e-mail, to be reliable, easy to use, and always available.

Users of operational systems pressure the CIO to let them select the operational system that they think best meets their discrete needs.

Modern CIOs face tremendous pressure from customers for everything from ensuring infrastructure applications are reliable and easy to use to finding ways of doing more with less. The accompanying Executive Report focuses on an important emerging trend in complex enterprise software systems: embedded business intelligence (BI). This trend has the potential to dramatically alter the IT landscape and the pressures faced by the average CIO.

Modern CIOs face tremendous pressure from customers for everything from ensuring infrastructure applications are reliable and easy to use to finding ways of doing more with less. The accompanying Executive Report focuses on an important emerging trend in complex enterprise software systems: embedded business intelligence (BI). This trend has the potential to dramatically alter the IT landscape and the pressures faced by the average CIO.

Many people think of outsourcing as a way to cut costs, but after nearly two decades of global outsourcing, we know that outsourcing initiatives don't always yield the expected value. In next month's issue, we'll explore the many factors organizations must address when deciding where best to source IT services.

Many people think of outsourcing as a way to cut costs, but after nearly two decades of global outsourcing, we know that outsourcing initiatives don't always yield the expected value. In next month's issue, we'll explore the many factors organizations must address when deciding where best to source IT services.

"I have bad news for you -- and I have good news" declared Ralph, 1 the project manager, as he started the weekly meeting of the Sure project. "The bad news is this site is going to be closed down. Employees have the option of either moving to the other side of the country or finding themselves a new job.

Over a decade's worth of IT outsourcing research and publications have produced a considerable volume of thoughts, theories, and propositions regarding outsourcing. There are over 143 academic works, a search on Amazon.com will yield 15,871 books, and Google will give you 89,400,000 results (as of this writing).

Over a decade's worth of IT outsourcing research and publications have produced a considerable volume of thoughts, theories, and propositions regarding outsourcing. There are over 143 academic works, a search on Amazon.com will yield 15,871 books, and Google will give you 89,400,000 results (as of this writing).

During the post-dot-com era, many companies have considered outsourcing a most effective approach to their cost reduction efforts across the enterprise. In this regard, offshore outsourcing may have been mostly conceived as a "silver bullet" solution for achieving quick return on investments while reducing the total cost of ownership.

During the post-dot-com era, many companies have considered outsourcing a most effective approach to their cost reduction efforts across the enterprise. In this regard, offshore outsourcing may have been mostly conceived as a "silver bullet" solution for achieving quick return on investments while reducing the total cost of ownership.