Few areas of business have produced as many surprises as has IT. If we look back over the past 40 years or so, we see an accelerating pattern of advance, driven by Moore's Law, in which technologies rise, propagate, and are then eclipsed by new and better technologies. And IT companies come and go almost as rapidly (e.g., Wang, Digital). The problem of keeping track of it all, how to see somewhat into the future to the next important business opportunity, is a difficult one, and it is the focus of this issue of CBR .

People like to complain about software quality, and with good reason. Who has not experienced the stages of grief (concern, fear, horror, anger, resignation) that follow a "fatal exception" notification indicating that you've lost work? Yes, software quality should be better. But software users' self-righteous complaining doesn't help the situation. In the article "Why Software Is So Bad" published in the July/August 2002 issue of Technology Review, Charles C.