Every week, I read stories of another offshore software company assessed at the highest levels of process maturity based on the Capability Maturity Model (Software CMM) of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). The photo that usually accompanies this story often shows youthful software developers standing with huge grins on their faces as though they have just won the lottery.

Unless you've been stuck aboard the International Space Station for the past few days, you've probably heard that IBM is buying Informix Software's database business for a cool US $1 billion in cash. Lots of people have commented as to what this deal means in general for the database market, but what does it portend for IBM's data warehousing and BI business, as well as for the BI market in general?

Building survivable systems out of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components is a daunting task, primarily because you have little or no access to the artifacts of the software engineering process used to create the components. One way to partially compensate is to use vendor risk assessments as a tool to help you build, maintain, and evolve survivable COTS-based systems.

Wireless business intelligence (BI) is about delivering data access and analysis to users of cell phones and other Web-enabled devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), which are beginning to proliferate among business professionals and other mobile workers.

How do you manage a project that spans internal and external organizations and whose participants reside in multiple locations? What if the project has evolving specifications, a tight delivery time frame, and high executive visibility? The management of complex, distributed projects is an increasingly common challenge in our global and e-business-based economy.

Saving money has always been one of the drivers for considering outsourcing, but it usually fell behind more strategic motivations, such as focusing on core competencies or freeing internal staff for other initiatives. However, in these tighter economic times, more companies are turning to outsourcing as a means to reduce and control IT costs. Is it possible to save money through outsourcing? Of course!

When I was a feckless teenager, one of my weekly amusements was reading the "Spy vs. Spy" cartoon strip in Mad magazine. It was a reflection of the Cold War era in which the magazine started, and the gadgets and tricks used by the good-guy and bad-guy adversaries reflected vintage-1960s technology.

I spent some time this week with the CEO of a medium-sized IT strategy/systems integration consulting firm. I've known him for a long time (since before he was CEO) and watched the company go through ups and downs. Two years ago, the firm was losing money.

Negative synergy is alive and (not) well. Smart individuals gather and produce a bad result. It happens often, and it wastes time, money, and people. There are, however, things IT managers can and should do about it.

Since the e-Project Advisor began, I have enjoyed reading the thought-provoking articles about speeding up the way IT delivers highly complex, mission-critical business solutions. I have read about ways to iteratively deliver value with long-term flexibility driven by a rigorous short-term practice. I have learned that collaborative, diverse teams are critical components.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) announcement last week that it plans to make nearly all of its courseware freely available on the Web generated considerable interest and media coverage, but it may be a full decade before the full ramifications of the university initiative are fully visible.

Whether you're a small business owner considering your first Web page or a CIO who's wondering just what's wrong with your site, maybe we can help. In this Advisor, we'll use a small duct tape store to illustrate five important Web design "laws."

"Now there is proof that the evolutionary approach to software development results in a speedier process and higher-quality [emphasis added] products." This is the tag line from a very interesting article in the Winter 2001 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review.