For corporate IT departments, pressure to cut costs and improve performance has never been greater. In most IT shops, development and support of internally developed systems account for at least half of all costs, while new projects have long wait and delivery times. The most immediate pressure is to reduce these delivery times and, if possible, the associated costs.

As the accompanying Executive Report discusses, there have been a number of recent improvements in patent protection for both software and business models. These improvements make it easier to gain and maintain stronger control of many forms of software assets and therefore make it easier to license them more profitably and effectively.

Web services represent a shift in computing that extends the scope of the Web from an infrastructure providing services to people to one providing services to software looking to interconnect with other software. The Web services vision is one in which software packaged as services can be discovered and connected to using established Web protocols such as HTTP, FTP, or SMTP.

Supply chain intelligence (SCI) is the practice of applying data warehousing and business intelligence (BI) to a company's supply chain operations.

There is a new software methodology war currently going on between the supporters of the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and the supporters of what is being called agile development.

For the average non-IT executives, IT expenses within their companies are one giant black hole that is beyond their understanding. The brave executive who tries to make an effort to understand is confused by the IT organizational structure.

If your organization is making a significant investment in enterprise application integration (EAI) technology, you are not alone. Estimates state that the EAI technology market is pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars annually with service revenues dwarfing technology revenue estimates by a factor of 10-to-1. Integration is in demand in the private and public sector.

Today, a new business phenomenon is taking shape that values the ability to transform individual and collective institutional knowledge to net worth.

You're probably reading this summary and the accompanying Executive Report because you want to improve software development in your organization.

The accompanying Executive Report details two of the key architectures necessary for efficient and productive application development: component architecture and application architecture.1

If asked, just about any manager today could define competitive intelligence (CI). You should expect to hear responses ranging from "stealing business secrets" and "industrial espionage" coming from the truly deluded to a more accurate "collection and analysis of competitor behavior and plans" from those better informed.

The accompanying Executive Report presents the application of empirical process control to the practice of project management. Traditional project management lays out a plan and ensures that the activities conform to the plan.

Although application service providers (ASPs) and Web service providers may compete on certain fronts, they will more often cooperate in providing customer solutions. The accompanying Executive Report defines ASPs and Web services, categorizes the different types of each, outlines their inherent benefits, and suggests how each will best be used and deployed in hybrid solutions.

The accompanying Executive Report resets the digital revolution in the context of business and technology progress. We're at a flashpoint: the pace of technology deployment and business velocity has already outstripped our ability to assess its impact on how we live, produce, and distribute.

Web services and associated XML technologies have recently been developed to address real time program and code module integration that is both language- and platform-independent. With Web services, APIs, input messages, and output messages are defined using XML.

The data resource in most public-and private-sector organizations is in a state of disarray. The quantities of disparate data are increasing rapidly, and these disparate data cannot be readily integrated to meet the demand for the information needed to support dynamic business activities.

Software defects are inevitable. Even high-reliability software that has been tested extensively still has defects. Defects can cause operational failures, which may have negative financial, human, or environmental consequences. In addition, the cost of fixing post-release defects can be tremendous. Good defect management practices allow projects to minimize the introduction of defects through preventive actions, monitor defect introduction and removal to anticipate changes in the software's quality, and use quality risk assessment in deciding where to focus inspection and testing.

The accompanying Executive Report identifies and describes technology trends that, when taken together, define the macro trend: pervasive computing -- a trend that will enable all sorts of activities that today are discrete, disconnected transactions. Pervasive computing will make transactions continuous and seamless.

Only very rarely does the whole IT industry fall in line behind a single set of standards. One thinks of SQL, the Internet, Web protocols, and perhaps C and C++, which all date prior to 1990. Recently, competition has become so fierce that even standards are bones of contention.

The typical IT organization is so busy responding to ever-increasing demands for development and maintenance of its systems that it has not seen the writing on the wall -- continuing to add to the complex webs of interdependent systems is, little by little, closing the door to the future.

Now, more than ever, companies are keenly aware of the tremendous benefits associated with understanding current and prospective customers. Competitors abound and information is in abundance, yet consumers seem to have less and less time to make informed purchasing decisions -- these are but a few signs of a paradoxical situation [3].

For a service company that delivers quality IT applications, project management (PM) is a fundamental discipline. In fact, project management -- strictly connected with a professional quality management approach -- can become the winning factor in the highly competitive area of application development, where the cost/time/quality factors need to be managed together.

When the Internet emerged as a business concept in the mid-1990s, it provided established businesses with three basic choices: ignore the Internet and hope it goes away; launch standalone Internet businesses; or integrate the Internet into existing business models, possibly modifying these business models in the process (otherwise known as a clicks and mortar approach).

Modeling is an important part of any software process. Yes, even Extreme Programming (XP), includes modeling techniques. Contrary to what XP's detractors will tell you, XP does not abandon modeling; instead, it minimizes modeling efforts by taking a test-first approach to design in which you develop your tests before you develop your code.

The benefits awaiting companies that build and maintain strong customer relationships are significant. They include greater customer loyalty, higher retention rates, lower acquisition costs, and expanded opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell products and services.