Editor's note: Assertion 57 from the Cutter Business Technology Council ("Pandemic II," Cutter Business Technology Trends and Impacts Council Opinion, Vol. 2, No. 12) states: "Every server on the Internet is attacked every day by hackers or hacker agent software.

As we all know, achieving IT and business alignment is not easy. We must tie business strategy, technology, and people into a comprehensive and synergistic package that, as Paul Strassmann of Strassmann, Inc. Consulting Services says, will demonstrate a positive relationship between IT and accepted financial measures of performance. However, as my mother used to say, you need to be careful for what you wish for, because you just might get it.

I think he's right. Everywhere you turn nowadays, you hear another what-if horror story.

Why rethink the IT function? There have been many articles in recent popular technology and business journals questioning the need for the chief information officer (CIO) role and internal corporate IT departments.

Why rethink the IT function? There have been many articles in recent popular technology and business journals questioning the need for the chief information officer (CIO) role and internal corporate IT departments.

For the average non-IT executives, IT expenses within their companies are one giant black hole that is beyond their understanding. The brave executive who tries to make an effort to understand is confused by the IT organizational structure.

For the average non-IT executives, IT expenses within their companies are one giant black hole that is beyond their understanding. The brave executive who tries to make an effort to understand is confused by the IT organizational structure.

Variation in your environment -- whether furniture, heating, air-conditioning, transportation, or your technology infrastructure -- is expensive. But while there are great savings embedded in standardized environments, the whole is fraught with emotion.

Everything you buy, you have to support -- or hire someone else to support. That's the problem with buying and deploying lots of stuff: it all needs attention. To make your support dollars effective, there are a number of things that you need to know.

Executive Summary

This Executive Report discusses the challenges that legacy applications and data structures place on organizations attempting to meet a wide variety of business requirements along with options for addressing these challenges. Leveraging legacy applications to meet time-critical business requirements is not a luxury in today's competitive business environment -- it is a necessity.

If your organization is making a significant investment in enterprise application integration (EAI) technology, you are not alone. Estimates state that the EAI technology market is pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars annually with service revenues dwarfing technology revenue estimates by a factor of 10-to-1. Integration is in demand in the private and public sector.

by Bob Shearer and Bruce Taylor

by Bob Shearer and Bruce Taylor

Today, a new business phenomenon is taking shape that values the ability to transform individual and collective institutional knowledge to net worth.

Today, a new business phenomenon is taking shape that values the ability to transform individual and collective institutional knowledge to net worth.

New imperatives, new concerns, and new technologies are forcing companies to rethink their fundamental business assumptions. Business no longer revolves around long-term plans and projections, large inventories, and long lead times. It is increasingly being driven by impatient customers and intensifying competition.

Electronic business activity totaled more than US $980 billion in 2000, according to the US Department of Commerce [1, 3]. Business-to-business (B2B) transactions accounted for more than 94% of all e-commerce transactions, and much of this activity involved B2B collaboration.

Trust and knowledge-based relationships are the glue that holds together the disaggregated virtual enterprise, far more than the transactions that are exchanged in shared information systems. The real value chain in virtual enterprises is not delivered with transactions alone; it's delivered through the exchange of knowledge with trusted partners.

Trust and knowledge-based relationships are the glue that holds together the disaggregated virtual enterprise, far more than the transactions that are exchanged in shared information systems. The real value chain in virtual enterprises is not delivered with transactions alone; it's delivered through the exchange of knowledge with trusted partners.

In Robert Wright's book Nonzero [1], he describes the impact technology has on the evolution of society. New technology comes along, and society rises to leverage the new capabilities that exist. He uses gaming theory to explain his point. Zero-sum games have winners and losers. The total benefit from playing the game nets out to zero. The winner benefits at the expense of the loser.

A primary IT focus in the early 21st century is support of business-to-business collaboration. Driven by many factors and enabled by the Internet, the opportunities to open up marketplaces and create operational efficiencies are simultaneously exciting and enormous. The technical challenges in doing so will prove just as exciting and enormous.

"Science Finds -- Industry Applies -- Man Conforms"

-- Motto of the Chicago World's Fair, 1933

You're probably reading this summary and the accompanying Executive Report because you want to improve software development in your organization.