What began as a trickle is turning into a torrent.... Global sourcing is a hot topic in executive suites throughout the US and Europe. Driven by our increasingly globalized economy, IT services are following the lead of industries such as manufacturing and agriculture in their shift to less expensive geographic locales.

For the most part, functional testing seems to be pretty straightforward. Do this, that happens. Is "that" what we expected? If so, the test passes; if anything else happens, it fails. Seems pretty simple.

Is IT considered to be of strategic importance in your organization? Here are a few signs to look for:

In a keynote at the Java One conference, Hasso Plattner, co-chairman of SAP, argued for common standards. Specifically, Plattner said:

I've got to give you a couple of threads first, then I promise I'll tie them together.

I recently had a phone conversation with a reader whose company is considering the use of a business intelligence (BI) application service provider (ASP) to outsource several of its BI functions. We discussed a number of issues to consider when contemplating the use of an analytical ASP. As a result, I've decided to make this the focus of this week's Advisor.

Recent revelations of abuse by supposedly world-class practitioners on Wall Street and at companies like Enron underscore the importance of a realistic approach to risk management.

In last month's Advisor (" The Devolution of E-Business," 27 March 2002), I described how the devolution of e-business, rather than signaling the end of e-business, is really an opportunity for the business as a whole.

It's been too many quarters since we've heard optimistic forecasts, and time will tell if the optimistic recovery headlines give way to increased IT spending in 2002. With the trauma and events over the last 18 months, Fortune 500 companies have hunkered down, stashed away any reserve funds, pared budgets, eliminated training and travel, furloughed staff, and gone into a survival mode of minimum sustenance.

"A man will do anything for a biscuit." --Judy Onos, Project Manager, Bell South

Throughout much of the economic boom times of the mid- to late 1990s, developing software at Internet speed was the rage. Most organizations employed strategies intensely focused on time to market, oftentimes without regard to cost.

The 1 April issue of BusinessWeek magazine has an excellent article that provides a review of what actually happened during the last decade ("Restating the '90s" by Michael J. Mandel, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_13/b3776001.htm).