They Pose Real ProblemsVirtual worlds are immature and rife with problems, from service outages to avatar harassment. Though they offer great promise, they aren't yet ready for fielding mainstream applications. Many early adopters saw no substantial benefit and have beat a hasty retreat. |
With this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review we focus on a very tangible problem that all modern organizations face: maximizing their investments in Web site design. How to maximize the ROI of a Web presence is an important challenge for organizations since, today, the Web is a key customer-interaction touch point for all but the very small firms. Web sites are one of the primary engines through which customers transact with an organization, access support services, and engage in after-sales service.
With this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we return our focus to the strategic role of the IS function and to issues of innovation. We do so on the basis of the recognition that it is the norm today for the IT shop to be, or have the potential to be, a boundary-spanning function.
"A good user experience doesn't just happen -- it first needs to be envisioned and researched, and then deliberately designed using the right mix of skills and technologies."
-- Carolyn Snyder, Guest Editor
Increasingly, users expect the kind of flexible, interactive, collaborative applications that Web 2.0 makes possible. Every successful consumer site or application with a "wow" factor raises the bar.
This month's Cutter Benchmark Review marks the third installment in our annual series on IT budgets and the yearly IT budgeting process. The budgeting process is one of critical importance to IT and business professionals in our subscriber base. It is the importance of this process that leads us to address it each year. Doing so also allows us to comment on year-over-year changes and monitor how the priorities of the organizations we survey change over time.
