Cutter Consortium: Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Probing the Web's Dark Energy for Fairer Control

26 Jun 2008 17:38:48 GMT

Zittrain, Jonathan | E-Mail Advisors | 26 June 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Physicists speak of dark energy, the label applied to the expansive oomph permeating the universe. The Internet has its own dark energy: the legions of nerds who code for fun, challenge, and uncertain profit. They do not make a business plan or solicit lawyers and VCs before jumping in, and they have no particular political or economic power. Yet they are the ones who developed the Internet in a backwater and declined to patent its protocols. They are the ones who took the hobbyist platforms of the first PCs and turned them into powerhouses that, together with the Internet, gave us one pleasant surprise after another: the electronic spreadsheet, instant messaging, Internet telephony, Wikipedia. But two problems threaten the Web's dark energy.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080626.html

Organizational Capital: The Magic Elixir?

25 Jun 2008 17:33:14 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 25 June 2008 | Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

On the face of it, we all can agree that how a company does its work matters a great deal. The continual interest in reorganizations, the business process reengineering explosion of the 1980s, and the now nearly universal acceptance of the business process and organizational structure as fundamental to good performance give proof to this truth.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2008/bit080625.html

Microsoft Strives for Enterprise 2.0 Leadership

25 Jun 2008 17:30:28 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 25 June 2008 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence

If there was ever any doubt as to what Microsoft's strategy regarding Enterprise 2.0 might be, it was shattered with several announcements at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, earlier this month. In a nutshell, Microsoft is moving to become an Enterprise 2.0 leader by taking advantage of its wildly popular SharePoint Server. In effect, the company is seeking to make SharePoint the platform of choice for companies' social computing needs.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2008/ea080625.html

Confusing Ourselves: What Users Want

19 Jun 2008 17:20:26 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 19 June 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management; Enterprise Architecture

Users are not interested in programs. If they are, it is our fault. What users want is systems that produce needed outputs with the minimum of additional input and with the maximum of integration (or the ability to integrate) with other systems with which they share data.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080619.html

How Intelligent Are You, Emotionally Speaking?

1 May 2008 15:46:00 GMT

Allen, Diane | Executive Updates | 01 May 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

From time to time, we have all experienced the frustration associated with managing an individual or a team not performing up to its capabilities or to our expectations. A project is overbudget, or the software deliverable is late again. Our inner desire may be to rant and rave in an expression of anger and frustration. However, if you had restraint and found another way of handling the situation, chances are you were using a high level of emotional intelligence, otherwise known as EQ.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0809.html

IT Hardware: The Free Ride Is Over

1 May 2008 15:34:17 GMT

Mazzucchelli, Lou; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 May 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The decades-old trend of computing and datacom hardware becoming "faster and cheaper" is about to change to just "faster." This change will affect how users approach IT budgeting, the way vendors approach hardware and software product lifecycle planning, and could ultimately spark a renaissance of software engineers who actually care about the efficiency of their code.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2008/05/index.html

Solving Your Data Problems: To DW or Not to DW

12 Jun 2008 15:29:02 GMT

Moss, Larissa | E-Mail Advisors | 12 June 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Almost every organization has data problems. These problems can be grouped into two categories. One type of problem is having redundant, inconsistent, and often plain-wrong data. The other type is not having easy access to the data. From the inception of the data warehouse (DW), the objective of building a DW has been to solve both types of problems. First, data is compiled, standardized, and integrated into a DW as the "single version of the truth." Second, end users in the organization are given access to the DW to do their reporting and analytics, which has become known as business intelligence (BI). To this day, there is a large contingent of BI experts who see the DW as the engine (or "plumbing") behind BI.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080612.html

Balancing Agile Innovation, Business Concerns

12 Jun 2008 15:29:58 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 12 June 2008 | Agile Project Management

Last year, I started introducing agile development to a highly innovative company. They are world-market leaders in their domain, and it's basically their technical expertise they hold responsible for their position. As I usually do, I started by teaching them agile planning and estimation techniques, and they seemed to be quite happy with them -- except the lead for the team that was responsible for the innovative core of the system. "This looks quite good," he said as he approached me after the first planning session, "but where is the time we need for research? You see, we are 'research and development,' and all we were talking about just now was 'development.' " I answered something along the lines that their velocity still leaves enough time for unplanned research, but he seemed to be more satisfied with my answer than I was. Agile development should point the way out of the process problem, but as I was explaining it, it seemed to me more like tweaking the planning process.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2008/apm080612.html

Solving Your Data Problems: To DW or Not to DW

12 Jun 2008 15:29:02 GMT

The Threat of Free, Internet-Based Software

5 Jun 2008 14:06:47 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 05 June 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

My friend and colleague on the Cutter Business Technology Council, Lou Mazzucchelli, recently sent around an article that was posted on Ars Technica titled "The promise of Google Apps includes a shrinking IT staff," by Nate Anderson. Anderson writes:

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080605.html

Examining IT Opportunities in Social Networks

29 May 2008 14:21:34 GMT

Murugesan, San | E-Mail Advisors | 29 May 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Everyone wants to get a slice of the social networking market. Social networks provide opportunities for large IT enterprises, innovative startups, third-party developers, IT professionals, and venture capitalists. IT businesses now have many new social network-inspired opportunities, some of which are yet to be explored, along different avenues, as follows:

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080529.html

Telepresence Is Here, and it's Coming Closer to You

22 May 2008 14:26:09 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 22 May 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

With high gasoline prices, an increasing number of organizations are revisiting their travel policies and about employees working from home. The pressures of high fuel costs, increasing travel time, and higher travel costs all argue for more remote (technology-mediated) meetings. The current buzzword for this is "telepresence," but "teleconferencing" is just as appropriate.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080522.html

Software-Plus-Service: Best or Worst of Both Worlds?

21 May 2008 14:23:03 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 21 May 2008 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

I've been thinking about the software-plus-service model, where a vendor offers online (hosted) software components that integrate with the vendor's software installed onsite at the end-user organization (i.e., the customer). Microsoft is pushing this approach in response to on-demand offerings from Google and other providers. More recently, SAP AG has jumped on the software-plus-service bandwagon as it has backed off its on-demand-only efforts. In some ways, this "hybrid" model makes sense. In other ways, it seems like it could be the worst of both worlds.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2008/ea080521.html

Navigating a Virtual World: Understanding Online Corporate Social Networks

15 May 2008 19:57:07 GMT

Clemons, Eric K. | E-Mail Advisors | 15 May 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Humans, like other primates, are fundamentally social animals. We congregate at rock concerts, football stadiums, and jazz clubs and through churches, golf clubs, and alumni associations. We've converted broadcast media into meeting places, with reality TV and hosted call-in talk shows. It should be no surprise that the newest medium, networked computing, has become the newest meeting place, whether for online gamers (worldofwarcraft.com), Second Life denizens (secondlife.com), beer enthusiasts (ratebeer.com), photography enthusiasts (flickr.com), travelers wanting to know what they are getting into when booking an unfamiliar property (www.tripadvisor.com), or newly admitted students at the University of Chicago or the University of Pennsylvania.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080515.html

How Value Networks Are Changing the Enterprise

8 May 2008 19:44:15 GMT

Allee, Verna | E-Mail Advisors | 08 May 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Today, however, businesses are discovering that the "engineered" approach is simply not sufficient to bring growth and prosperity. The goal of process engineering is to drive out variation to achieve consistent outcomes. However, driving out variation also drives out innovation, flexibility, and agility. In fluid markets, and in the global supply chains and exploding innovation that are found in virtually every kind of business, variation is not only a given -- it is desirable!

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080508.html

The Implications of Cloud Computing Enterprise Architecture

7 May 2008 19:14:00 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 07 May 2008 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Recently, cloud computing and the rush to solve the problem of writing programs to exploit parallel computers have begun to push software-oriented architecture (SOA) out of the technical headlines. One of the reasons, of course, is that new things are always more interesting to journalists and their readers and that SOA is getting more down and dirty (real-world), and people are discovering that it is still hard work. This column is not about SOA's place in enterprise architecture -- it is clearly very important, and, warts and all, it is going to play a bigger and bigger role in a great many organizations. This column is about issues farther down the track. What do enterprise architects need to be thinking about over the next few years in terms of the next generation of technology and the impact it will have on enterprise computing?

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2008/ea080507.html

Business Performance Management Closely Tied to Business Process Change

6 May 2008 19:11:58 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 06 May 2008 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

More than half of end-user organizations undertaking business performance management initiatives are required to make changes to existing business processes in order to support implementing their performance management solutions. This finding comes from a Cutter Consortium survey conducted in January 2008 of 101 end-user organizations (based worldwide). The survey was designed to measure the extent that organizations are implementing business performance management and the techniques and tools they are using as well as the issues they are encountering in their efforts.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2008/bia080506.html

Thinking Outside the Moat

1 Apr 2008 19:07:16 GMT

Davis, Christine; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

There is a growing culture clash within the walls of the corporation caused by outdated and untenable rules as perceived by the Millennials, or Gen-Yers, and other techno-savvy employees.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2008/04/index.html

Whistling Past the Graveyard on a Sunny Day

1 Mar 2008 15:05:03 GMT

Blitstein, Ron; Lister, Tim; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

IT professionals strive to work with business partners and engineer businesses for efficiency. It is unclear that the challenge of delivering a resilient organization has received sufficient attention.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2008/03/index.html

Is the World Ready for the Semantic Web?

15 Apr 2008 15:00:05 GMT

Choate, Mark | Executive Updates | 15 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I wrote a book proposal in 2003 that boldly announced that the Web was on the verge of a fundamental change from being a repository of documents to a source of knowledge. The Semantic Web, long discussed and theorized about, was on the verge of becoming mainstream, I wrote. The book found no publisher, and I graciously avoided the fate of so many prognosticators who find their predictions proved false (or premature) by the slow, plodding steps of history.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0808.html

Virtualization: Current Issues and Strategies

1 Apr 2008 14:59:27 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 01 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Virtualization has become increasingly important in data centers over the past several years, as companies have sought to contain costs, reduce physical server use, and improve efficiency. In this Executive Update, we'll examine the current issues and strategies in the virtualization realm.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0807.html

Net Neutrality

15 Mar 2008 14:58:38 GMT

Choate, Mark | Executive Updates | 15 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The controversy over Net neutrality raised its head again when the Associated Press reported in October 2007 that Comcast was throttling peer-to-peer (P2P) Internet traffic. Proponents of Net neutrality saw it as the smoking gun that definitively proves the need for Net neutrality legislation. The debate and the various calls for legislated remedies have introduced an air of uncertainty in the marketplace. Regardless of how politicians ultimately decide to respond to the issue, the debate raises important questions for IT professionals in terms of how much they should invest in technologies that consume high bandwidth, such as P2P and VoIP, and how the proposed remedies might affect the underlying cost structure of those technologies.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0806.html

Back to the Future Again -- From the Fourth Generation to the Third, Part I

1 May 2008 22:26:15 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 01 May 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence

One of the interesting dilemmas facing current IT development managers is what to do with the applications that were written in what used to be referred to as 4GLs (fourth-generation languages). In the 1980s and 1990s, a number of such languages were developed that were designed first to handle management reporting tasks and then to develop basic PC and client-server applications. A key characteristic of these kinds of development environments is that they were based on a specific database. Over time, most of these tools gravitated to one or another relational database management system, or RDBMS (DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, etc.). The hallmark of these tools is that they did many things for you. Among these 4GLs were tools like Oracle Forms and Microsoft Access (which included its own RDBMS).

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080501.html

Weizenbaum, Eliza, and the Boundaries of AI

24 Apr 2008 22:14:25 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 24 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I noted that Joseph Weizenbaum died last month. Weizenbaum was an early computer scientist, most famous perhaps for the creation of Eliza, a very early artificial intelligence (AI) program fashioned around a simple pattern recognition (stimulus-response) model that mimicked the approach used by psychologists and psychiatrists in talking to patients.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080424.html

Net Neutrality

15 Mar 2008 18:15:22 GMT

Convergence CRM to Accelerate "Personal" Service

17 Apr 2008 18:13:34 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 17 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I recently spent some time on hold with -- and occasionally actually speaking with -- "technical support" representatives. I listened to the on-hold voice tell me over and over again that I could just go to the Web site for technical support, since the scripts that the human technical support team used to troubleshoot problems were the same scripts that the digital technical-support team used. This advice struck me as peculiar: if I could really get the answers I needed from the Web, then why was the company spending so much money frustrating me with 1-800-number support? Was the voice implying that I was an idiot to actually want to speak with someone? I bounced from service rep to service rep, ending with a (live) support professional telling me that she did not know how to solve my problem.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080417.html

When Applying a Standard, Use Your Judgment

10 Apr 2008 15:30:07 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 10 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture; Business Intelligence; Agile Project Management

I was talking to someone recently who had used a requirements approach about which I was skeptical.

"How many times have you worked on a project that used this approach?" I asked.

"I'd guess 25 or 26," he replied.

"Did it work?" I asked. "It didn't," he replied.

"Why are you recommending it on this project?" I asked, as my voice got louder.

"It is a standard," he answered, after a little consideration.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080410.html

Why Mining Internet Social Media Is Difficult

8 Apr 2008 15:25:06 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 08 April 2008 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The problem with mining blogs, message boards, online forums, and other social media is that it requires the use of text-mining tools that can analyze unstructured data. Similar to structured data mining, text mining uses sophisticated algorithms, such as neural networks, case-based reasoning (CBR), probabilistic reasoning, advanced statistical methods, and other machine learning techniques, to automate data analysis and discovery in unstructured data. But a key differentiator between the two is that text mining can also makes use of natural language processing (NLP) techniques, such as lexical processing and analysis, word/phrase parsing, and other methods, to enable text mining systems to identify and highlight key concepts and relationships among words in text. All of these techniques, however, are not widely understood by most corporate IT departments. Consequently, the mining and analysis of unstructured data is not widely used by mainstream organizations.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2008/bia080408.html

A Solid Innovation in Laptop Storage Begins to Emerge

3 Apr 2008 15:22:14 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 03 April 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

As is the case with many technology innovations compared to existing solutions, the market price starts high and the benefits taken in the context of the costs involved start low. Price and benefits move toward each other until joining at that inflection point of value where the innovation presents an affordable alternative to the existing technology. We might be quickly approaching the affordability inflection point in solid-state storage.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080403.html

Tactics for a New Era: What Startups and Wind-Downs Do Now

1 Mar 2008 17:21:54 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Updates | 01 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

After 25 years on the corporate platform, there has been a massive shift; we're now moving outside of the corporate firewall into "the cloud" of the Internet platform (see Figure 1). So what does this mean for startup and wind-down companies?

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0805.html

"We Tried That!" How Failure Can Be Just a Beginning

27 Mar 2008 20:41:54 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 27 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

At a conference recently, a group of approximately 100 people had just witnessed an impressive demo of a mature application development environment. At the end of the session, there was a question-and-answer session. At one point, a fellow at the back of the room asked, "Isn't that like a CASE tool?" I was acting as the moderator, and I wasn't sure how to respond.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080327.html

What Was Microsoft Thinking? Part 2

20 Mar 2008 20:24:26 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 20 March 2008 | Innovation; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In my last Trends Advisor (see "What Was Microsoft Thinking?" 6 March 2008), I took Microsoft to task for its latest set of mainline products, particularly Word 2007. One of the e-mails I got back said that Microsoft had done extensive requirements gathering and that the latest version of Word 2007 had 90% coverage of all of the major functions people requested. I suspect that is right. Indeed, the problem with most word-processing, presentation, and spreadsheet programs is that they are indeed "feature rich."

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080320.html

HDTV and the Office

1 Feb 2008 19:22:03 GMT

DeMarco, Tom; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Present advances in home media promise to be the tail that wags the dog of organizational computing.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2008/02/index.html

What Was Microsoft Thinking?

6 Mar 2008 15:36:59 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 06 March 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In previous Trends Advisors, I've talked about Steve Jobs and closed versus open architectures. Now I have to talk about the problem with open architectures in closed (read monopolistic) economies. This is a world in which one vendor controls (or used to control) close to 90% of desktop and laptop operating systems and nearly that much of the office application software. In these circumstances, there is a tendency to fall into the trap of producing increasingly complicated software that does more and more things in an attempt to keep prices high and the revenue stream flowing in.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080306.html

The Green Data Center: Taking the First Steps Toward Green IT? Part II

15 Feb 2008 15:15:29 GMT

Osborne, Ian | Executive Updates | 15 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Part I in this two-part Executive Update series (Vol. 9, No. 3) defined green IT and discussed the developments and initiatives that have led to an awareness of the need for green data centers in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Here in Part II, I discuss some principles, make recommendations for the design and operation of a green computing infrastructure, and propose a strategy for implementation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0804.html

It's Better Outside

28 Feb 2008 15:00:59 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 28 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The big change from the last century to the one we find ourselves in today is the locus of computing and communications technology and the way we're destined to use this technology.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080228.html

Why Business Performance Management Is a Strategic Imperative

26 Feb 2008 14:55:26 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 26 February 2008 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Organizations should now view business performance management as a strategic initiative that is essential for monitoring, measuring, and optimizing corporate performance. Organizations that fail to take this view risk being outperformed by more nimble competitors that do.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2008/bia080226.html

The Stata Center Is Leaking! Part 1

21 Feb 2008 14:50:56 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 21 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management

In 1943, a very important building was built on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, that became something of a celebrity in its own right. For one thing, like many WWII-era buildings, Building 20 was a "temporary" structure. And like many temporary structures, it outlived its original planning horizon. It was never intended to last this long.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080221.html

How Models, Prototypes Can Set You Free, Part 1

14 Feb 2008 15:23:13 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 14 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management

For the most part, I've found that the trick in working with people is not to dazzle them with formal modeling, but to use models -- especially visual models and prototypes -- to help define problems that are not easy to put into words. In the right circumstances, visual models and prototypes can improve communication dramatically. The more real the models are, the better most people can relate to them.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080214.html

The Green Data Center: Taking the First Steps Toward Green IT? Part I

1 Feb 2008 15:13:54 GMT

Osborne, Ian | Executive Updates | 01 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Grid Computing Now! is a UK-based knowledge-transfer network aimed at championing the adoption of grid computing technologies to IT leaders in UK public and private sectors. Since its establishment in 2005, the project has witnessed the gradual absorption of key technologies and principles into mainstream computing capabilities and flagship implementations of distributed computing infrastructures in the world's leading IT users: Google, Amazon.com, and eBay, as well as leading organizations in the financial, pharmaceutical, engineering, and oil and gas sectors. While the root cause for this adoption of grid has been the need for large-scale computing capabilities for their businesses, a new imperative is emerging: green IT. In this context, this term alludes to the notion of more energy-efficient computing capabilities, leading to reduced carbon emissions and energy costs. In this first Executive Update of a two-part series, I survey the developments underway in the UK and European Commission (EC), including discussion of the regulatory activities being considered, as well as some early case studies of successful adoption within the data center. In Part II, some principles and recommendations are made and a strategy for implementation is discussed.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0803.html

Summit LA Themes and Implications Podcast

24 Oct 2007 20:30:19 GMT

DeMarco, Tom | Webinars/Multimedia | 24 October 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Tom DeMarco wraps up Summit 2007 Latin America by identifying the themes that have emerged throughout the conference. This live "take-home lesson checklist" helps you define both your corporate business-IT strategy and your personal professional growth strategy.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/webinar/2007/summit-la-themes.html

Artificial Intelligence: Rumors of Its Demise Were Greatly Exaggerated

1 Jan 2008 20:19:52 GMT

Ellyn, Lynne; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology never died; rather, it became the secret sauce in many of today's most successful technologies and now offers brave IT departments the opportunity to deploy truly innovative solutions to enable business success.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/reports/2008/01/index.html

Enterprises Take Steps to Customize E-Learning

7 Feb 2008 20:08:56 GMT

Dublin, Lance | E-Mail Advisors | 07 February 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

It is often said that there are only two things you can be sure of in life: death and taxes. Well, in today's world, I think you have to add three more things to that list -- change, technology, and learning.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080207.html

SaaS Penetrates the IT Department

15 Jan 2008 19:53:53 GMT

Kaplan, Jeffrey M. | Executive Updates | 15 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Now a new generation of SaaS solutions is emerging that are specifically aimed at helping IT professionals perform their responsibilities and better support the business needs of their corporate end users and executives. Cutter's third annual SaaS survey indicates that this new generation of IT management SaaS solutions is gaining acceptance and could transform the way IT departments operate.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0802.html

Creative Revolution or the Assault on Culture?

31 Jan 2008 19:43:15 GMT

Stokalski, Borys | E-Mail Advisors | 31 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

Andrew Keen's book The Cult of the Amateur pours buckets of cold water onto the heads of Web 2.0 enthusiasts, accusing them of "worshipping the creative amateur" -- regardless of how poorly educated and inarticulate they may be. Keen contends that the vast majority of content delivered by such creative amateurs is of desperately low quality -- and, at the same time, of overwhelmingly large quantity. Keen's lament on this "assault on culture" seems justified, as far as the facts he uses are concerned. But there may be more to this flood of semiartistic content than what Keen pictures as some kind of "culture-cide."

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080131.html

Downturn Should Mean Upturn in Focus on IT's Cost

30 Jan 2008 19:39:56 GMT

Benson, Robert J.; Bugnitz, Tom | E-Mail Advisors | 30 January 2008 | Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

While most of us worry about IT's strategic impact (does IT really matter?), events have turned again to require that we worry about IT's cost. There's little doubt that IT does matter in many industries. However, when times get tough, management's attention returns to the issue of cost.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2008/bit080130.html

Semantic Models, SOA: Speaking a Common Language Across Domains

24 Jan 2008 16:15:43 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 24 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture; Business Intelligence

One of the great things about working with Cutter Consortium is that I get to work with a lot of really smart people. One of those people is Mike Rosen, who is the Enterprise Architecture Practice Director for Cutter as well as a Senior Consultant. Recently, Mike and I were talking about understanding data within service-oriented architecture (SOA), and he said something that I think is really important. He said that one of the things that you have to remember in building a robust SOA environment is the understanding of the "shared semantic model"; it is not enough for each service to define its own data needs; the individual data needs to be the same for all the services that are involved in the same problem domain.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080124.html

Green Requirements for IT and Telecom

1 Jan 2008 15:48:14 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 01 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

As environmental concerns filter into business and industry, IT is coming under scrutiny. Issues include power use and reliance on fossil fuels; disposal of electronic components, which include toxic waste; and effects on other business processes. IT is also seen as an important part of the solution, both within the firm and on a macro level in managing energy use and greenhouse gas emission in industry. It is becoming good policy to consider green issues from a public relations perspective. But, critical to acceptance, most green measures are likely to also result in long-term cost savings through reduced energy costs and more efficient use of equipment.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2008/bttu0801.html

On Large Projects, Velocity Matters, Part 2

17 Jan 2008 13:40:54 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 17 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management; Innovation

If you get a chance, you ought to tune in to Cutter Senior Consultant Michael Mah's Cutter Webinar titled "Case Study: The Impact of Agile on Productivity at Five Companies." [This morning, January 17, at 11:30 EST -- you can still register now or watch the recording at a later date.] I've been working with Michael recently, and he has been giving me a prebriefing on the findings. I don't want to give too much away, but Michael's research has uncovered a number of organizations that are doing very well on large, agile projects. This is really encouraging, since one of the criticisms of agile development has always been that it wouldn't work on really large projects.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080117.html

The Web's Evolution and the Opportunities for the IT Community: Part 2

10 Jan 2008 13:30:33 GMT

Murugesan, San | E-Mail Advisors | 10 January 2008 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The Web has not yet reached its full potential; it's a moving post. In the first installment of this two-part Advisor series (see "The Web's Evolution and the Opportunities for the IT Community: Part 1," 27 December 2007), we discussed the evolution of the Web into four stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and Web 4.0. While there may not be a clear boundary between these stages or general agreement on what Web 2.0, Web 3.0, or Web X. 0 is, the Web's evolution has not only been significant, but has been "disruptive" in terms of its impact on IT, business, and the society at large. There has been a paradigm shift in how and what for we use the Web.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2008/btt080110.html

Your Guide to Understanding the Evolution, Power, and Potential of Online Social Networks: Part II

1 Oct 2007 17:38:11 GMT

Murugesan, San | Executive Reports | 01 October 2007 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

How can you harness the power of social networks to your advantage? Has the hype around social networks gone too far? Blindly creating or adopting social networking sites won’t yield the outcomes you desire and may even be counterproductive. But you can leverage the power of the network - the strength of the weak ties - in innovative ways. This Executive Report, the second in a two-part series, examines key challenges in harnessing social networks, identifies emerging trends, and explores the opportunities social networks present for you and your enterprise.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/reports/2007/10/index.html

Happy New Year (But Don't Count On It)

1 Dec 2007 17:29:04 GMT

The Cutter Business Technology Council; Seiden, Mark | Executive Reports | 01 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

From our very first security Opinion, "Pandemic I: Malicious Disruption (The Halloween Scenario)" in October of 2001, we have dealt with security problems more than any other issue. This is in part because our clients tell us it's what they worry about. And just as important, it's because the pieces of a very worrisome whole have been accumulating.

In this month's omnibus Opinion, Council members weigh in on their hopes and fears for what the new year may bring. Whether we're on the brink of an accelerating attack on our underlying infrastructure -- similar to the attack that the Russians seem to have mounted on Estonia's digital networks back in May -- or it's just business as usual with billions of dollars going down the drain for security, the problem just won't go away. And it won't stay the same either. That leaves only one ugly possibility ...

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2007/12/index.html

SaaS Market Shifting from Point Solutions to Platform Strategies

15 Dec 2007 17:22:41 GMT

Kaplan, Jeffrey M. | Executive Updates | 15 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is rapidly evolving to emulate the software industry as a whole. Although most people associate SaaS with Google's collaboration- and productivity-oriented applications and with Salesforce.com's customer relationship management (CRM) and sales automation solutions, the truth is that SaaS alternatives now exist for nearly every legacy application category.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2007/bttu0724.html

Software Indemnification Revisited

1 Dec 2007 17:15:54 GMT

Christenson, Nick | Executive Updates | 01 December 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Nearly two years ago, I wrote an Executive Update on the topic of IP in software and end-user indemnification (see Vol. 6, No. 1), and I made some predictions about what we could expect. Considerable time has passed since then, so it seems appropriate to revisit the issues surrounding the topic and see whether my predictions held any weight.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2007/bttu0723.html