Retaining IT employees has become one of today's most difficult challenges for CIOs and senior systems management teams. Those who have the drive and insight to consider many possibilities will keep their people. It's too easy to hide behind the belief that the amount of money offered -- or not offered -- is the only reason for retention problems.

Paul Harmon, Editor

The application server market is in a period of huge growth as new products appear, existing products are modified and merged, and organization after organization moves all or part of its operations to the Web. But by far the most significant factor in the growth of this market comes from the discovery that decades-old products are, in fact, application servers.

The past three years have seen an enormous emphasis on application servers -- whatever they may be. The term is used in overlapping ways:

Last month, we explored the question of how many companies were developing e-business applications. We determined that 17% of the companies Cutter Consortium surveyed already had an e-business infrastructure, while 76% were currently evolving an e-business architecture. We also reported that 92% of the surveyed companies were committed to some kind of e-business development.

For many, the process of implementing software is the same today as it was a decade ago. Many new techniques have been devised, but few, if any, have been widely adopted. Organizations still mitigate their risks by engaging strong technical resources at a high price, neglecting the real issue: e-business projects require a strategic focus on implementation techniques.

First, I continue to bang away at the topic of managing risk in my article "Sizing Up Your Promises and Expectations." When we examine IT project overrun statistics, we see that the small percentage of projects that manage to make both cost and schedule do so by the only method known to mankind when the deadline looms like a freight train -- they cut function to the core. I take a look at how people get into that sordid mess in the first place.

There are literally hundreds of products that are being marketed as an easy way to add personalization capabilities to your Web site. In reality, the state of the market for personalization products is extremely confusing. Contrary to what the vendors say, there are no complete solutions available.

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Recently I met with the folks from Yamatake Corporation to discuss the company's new forecasting and estimation software, which it has just introduced into the North American market.

Some of our best friends are lawyers. Indeed, one of us is a lawyer, and the other one works with them frequently as an expert witness and expert consultant. However, from the point of view of an IT project, lawyers are generally not viewed as assets -- at least not until the project is falling apart and one side or the other is threatening to sue.

In today's e-conomy, time is bending all the rules. Corporations across all industries face strategic inflection points, those described by Intel Chairman Andy Grove as "the time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change."

In today's e-conomy, time is bending all the rules. Corporations across all industries face strategic inflection points, those described by Intel Chairman Andy Grove as "the time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change."

In today's e-conomy, time is bending all the rules. Corporations across all industries face strategic inflection points, those described by Intel Chairman Andy Grove as "the time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change."

You are a software engineer working on a software product, and you are not sure of how a customer wants a new change request implemented. You try to get clarification, but the customer cannot articulate the request. To shortcut the process, your customer provides you with a copy of a user manual from another software product.

You are a software engineer working on a software product, and you are not sure of how a customer wants a new change request implemented. You try to get clarification, but the customer cannot articulate the request. To shortcut the process, your customer provides you with a copy of a user manual from another software product.

Perception is reality. It is a bitter truth, but one that haunts IT professionals time and time again -- from the understanding of user requirements, to expectations management, to product selection and contract negotiation.

Perception is reality. It is a bitter truth, but one that haunts IT professionals time and time again -- from the understanding of user requirements, to expectations management, to product selection and contract negotiation.

Disclaimer I am not a lawyer, and no part of this article should be interpreted as legal advice. Do not act or rely upon law-related information in this article without seeking the advice of an attorney.