In a field that changes as rapidly as IT does, the temptation to prognosticate on the future is irresistible. Faced with a new century, and a new millennium, it wouldn't be surprising if we spent the entire first year doing nothing but contemplating our navels and meditating about the future. We're not immune to that temptation at Cutter IT Journal, and we've devoted this first issue of calendar year 2000 (the noughts? The zips? The zeroes? The ohs?) to some interesting thoughts on trends and directions for systems and application developers.