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 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 might get it.

The Object Management Group (OMG) has scheduled a workshop on Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) for 7-9 February 2000, in Orlando, Florida, and I think it's a meeting that serious enterprise architects ought to consider attending.

In the first four articles in this series, I identified a maturity model for Internet technology adoption (below). This article focuses on how companies can move from Level 3 to Level 4.

In the first four articles in this series, I identified a maturity model for Internet technology adoption (below). This article focuses on how companies can move from Level 3 to Level 4.

The Object Management Group (OMG) has scheduled a workshop on Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) for 7-9 February 2000, in Orlando, Florida, and I think it's a meeting that serious enterprise architects

The Object Management Group (OMG) has scheduled a workshop on Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) for 7-9 February 2000, in Orlando, Florida, and I think it's a meeting that serious enterprise architects

Software robustness is a problem that everybody cares about but few people address in their products. The average project has several weeks devoted to testing, mostly in the weeks before deployment. Of course, most software ends up behind schedule and over budget, and testing is the first thing to get reduced or cut. Thus, much commercial software gets only a couple of days of testing before it is shipped.

There is a vital difference between what is technologically possible and what is culturally doable. In the days when technology was merely an enabler of change, the difference between that which was technologically possible and that which was culturally doable was often the difference between a passing fad and legitimate change.

In February, Microsoft will officially begin to ship the first release of its new Windows 2000 series of operating systems. (It's important to keep in mind what the marketing wordsmiths at Microsoft have done. They have said they were renaming NT 5, Windows 2000. But in fact, they are releasing at least three versions of Windows 2000.

This report is about how different the world will be in just a few short years. As an IT professional (or an executive involved with IT), you will find that the pace of technology change and the velocity of your business processes is so accelerated that there's barely enough time to maintain your current market position, let alone explore radical new ones.

Those who make, apply, and support information technology cannot adequately respond to the pace of technology change. Programmers proficient in C and PowerBuilder wonder how their skills got devalued so fast.

The promise of third-generation e-business is total integration of all business processes. Many well-known e-businesses -- Dell Computer Corporation and Ford Motor Company, for example -- have implemented third-generation capabilities and enhanced their business performance significantly. Most e-businesses, however, have not evolved to third-generation form.

Since the emergence of the Internet as the stage upon which a cast of new technologies continuously appear, the pace of business has become astounding, even tiring. However, as IT professionals, it is imperative that we do more than simply keep abreast of developments. We must ensure that the strategic plan of the business reflects the new opportunities and threats inherent in the technology.

Paul Harmon, Editor

Editor's Note: E-commerce sites generate huge amounts of customer data. How do you leverage this data? You mine it.

Acta Technology has introduced new components that extend its ActaWorks data warehouse extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) tools to provide an architecture that lets companies externalize data from their

In the February 1999 issue of CDS, I provided an overview of the application server market. I began by saying it was very confusing -- I'd say exactly the same thing today.

Run for the hills!