It's official: IT outsourcing has achieved bandwagon status. How can you tell? Well, because the trend now combines a tremendous amount of activity with a tremendous amount of confusion. When people act in large numbers amid so much debate and disarrangement, that's a bandwagon.

If you knew that burglars were operating in your neighborhood, that they possessed technology rendering the locks on your home useless, and that affordable lock technologies that provide better protection were available, what would you do? Most people would change their locks ASAP. But according to this month's CBR , many companies bring a different sensibility to bear when it comes to information security.

Over the past decade, pretty much anyone who has used the Internet has also used portals. Portals have become familiar; we know what they are, what they do, and how to use them. But as corporate IT applications, they have suffered from an identity crisis. It's not the fault of the portals or of portal vendors. The problem lies with us -- the current and prospective users of corporate portals -- and it boils down to this: we don't know what we want portals to be.