Truth is often tautological; at least it seems that way once it is stated. Certainly that appears to be the case considering the theme of this month's Executive Update, that given any particular technology, different organizations will experience different results from using that technology. What keeps this tautology from becoming trite is that different organizations do not simply experience different results; they experience dramatically different results.

Enterprise application integration (EAI) has emerged as the latest information management trend. Unfortunately, a typical EAI scenario is likely to focus on near-term integration tactics and ignore long-term integration strategies. As trends go, EAI is one of the better ones to emanate from software vendors and trade rags in recent years, because it is driven by real, immediate business requirements.

Paul Harmon, Editor

Microsoft isn't the superior marketing organization it is often made out to be.

According to a new e-business study by Cutter Consortium, 59% of the respondents doing e-business say that the business funds e-business; 30% of the respondents have shared busi

As we have explored in several issues of eAD, the two most pressing issues in information technology today are:

The enterprise first saw Java in the browsers of its employees four years ago. These applets, the vanguard of the revolution, have all but vanished, and Java has moved from employee clients to corporate servers. Along the way, performance and compatibility problems have largely been solved.

To feel confident about using a technology for critical applications, certain questions must be answered satisfactorily: Is this technology succeeding in production elsewhere? Is there enough support for developing applications? Are enough people committed to the success of this technology? Are vendors providing the necessary tools to get the job done?

One of my pet peeves is the limited coverage of object database management systems (ODBMS) in the industry weeklies. Think back. How many times over the past six months have you seen a news report highlighting ODBMS? People frequently ask me why nothing is happening with ODBMS, since they see no news.

Everyone has read about Charles Schwab's Java/CORBA-based Internet trading system and Dell's COM-NT-based system for ordering customized PCs via the Web. The question is: how widespread is this trend and how rapidly it is growing?

Enron Energy Systems, Inc. (EES) of Houston, Texas, USA, is a reseller of electricity and natural gas, providing energy facility outsourcing solutions to commercial and industrial customers across the nation. EES offers services such as custom billing, equipment financing and maintenance, usage monitoring, and consultation.

This past month, a number of business intelligence (BI) companies have informed me of their plans to offer hosted BI applications and online data analysis services that companies can rent for a monthly fee. Moreover, I expect more to do so as soon as the attraction of the application service provider (ASP) model proves too irresistible for many BI companies.

©2000 by Raytheon Company. All rights reserved.

We have always been self-confident here at sd&m and convinced that we are very good, even among the best. But it is something else if the same is said by Tom DeMarco and McKinsey. Tom reached his verdict in 1994 after reviewing us for several days, and consultants from McKinsey scrutinized sd&m in the context of their analysis of the "Secrets of Software Success" [4].

We have always been self-confident here at sd&m and convinced that we are very good, even among the best. But it is something else if the same is said by Tom DeMarco and McKinsey. Tom reached his verdict in 1994 after reviewing us for several days, and consultants from McKinsey scrutinized sd&m in the context of their analysis of the "Secrets of Software Success" [4].

There is a worldwide software process movement afoot, largely inspired by the work of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), with its five-level Capability Maturity Model® for Software (Software CMM®) [5].1 There are annual software process conferences in the US (the Software Engineering Process Group [SEPG] Conference is approaching 2,000 attendees), Europe, India,

As we move into the new millennium, anticipating a host of new technological advancements in every aspect of our lives, there will be one constant that we will continue to expect -- quality. The desire for it, the expectation of it, the search for it will drive the decisions we will make as consumers.

Would you like to be part of a world-class IT organization? Of course you would -- it's like asking whether a basketball fan would like to be a member of the Chicago Bulls team that won three consecutive championships with Michael Jordan, or whether a small-town violinist would like to play with the New York Philharmonic. Similarly, would you like to be recognized as a world-class IT professional?

This past month, a number of business intelligence (BI) companies have informed me of their plans to offer hosted BI applications and online data analysis services that companies can rent for a monthly fee.

This past month, a number of business intelligence (BI) companies have informed me of their plans to offer hosted BI applications and online data analysis services that companies can rent for a monthly fee.