I read three articles recently that each sought to describe the current state of the software component market. None of them seemed quite right to me, so I decided I'd return to this perennial topic myself.

These days, it seems that everyone is interested in all aspects of security, privacy, and business resumption planning (also known as disaster recovery). Auditors are scrambling to ensure that their companies are prepared for all sorts of contingencies they only imagined might happen in 2000 (when they were worrying about Y2K compliance fallout). Today, auditors are developing "minimum acceptable security standards" to make sure their clients have considered all aspects of internal security and privacy.

I read all the standard business magazines and journals, so I'm well aware that many economists and business writers are calling the current recovery a "jobless recovery." The implication is that companies have become more productive and are therefore able to handle increased activity without the need to hire more employees.

IBM has done something really smart, and the principle at least bears some discussion for any IT organization that wants to rationalize its IT application environment.