Cutter Consortium: Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Setting Sail Toward a New "SEA"

22 Oct 2009 22:51:54 GMT

Ummel, Mitchell | E-Mail Advisors | 22 October 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Our two-decades-old World Wide Web architecture is long past due for an upgrade. During what we might call the "Web 1.0-2.0 epoch," demand for computing has grown across every enterprise, in every sector, around the globe. We continue to struggle to meet this demand using our traditional approaches to building and managing enterprise information systems. Mounting barriers of complexity and scalability continue to hinder business agility, increase costs, and constrain overall productivity. The Semantic Web (also often referred to as Web 3.0) is emerging as the prescribed solution, and it offers us a compelling architectural framework upon which to build next-generation Internet-ready applications.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt091022.html

Seriously Folks, Could These Games Aid Management Issues?

15 Oct 2009 22:37:40 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 15 October 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Like many people, I grow increasingly unhappy with the level of public discourse. In an age of "in-your-face politics" and "hardball" discussions in which two extreme positions are posed as the way to present public policy, it is difficult to imagine what the future of the world may be like. Then, the other day, I had a discussion that made me think that all was not lost.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt091015.html

Opening Up Enterprise Mashups

13 Oct 2009 22:32:33 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 13 October 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Enterprise mashups increasingly are becoming part of companies' toolkits when it comes to integrating data for BI and other decision-support applications. According to our research [1], approximately 24% of end-user organizations currently use mashups to combine multiple data sources into a single source to feed BI applications like dashboards, maps (i.e., mapping and GIS), visualization tools, desktop productivity tools (spreadsheets, etc.), customer relationship management (CRM), and other decision support systems. But while their popularity has grown, the problem of incompatibility across different vendors' mashup tools has been a thorn in the side of some end-user organizations' adoption plans due to fears of platform interoperability and vendor lock-in issues. The Open Mashup Alliance (OMA) seeks to correct this problem.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia091013.html

PII: You Don't Know Jack, But the Bad Guys Have His Personally Identifiable Information

2 Aug 2009 00:59:34 GMT

Lister, Tim; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 August 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

More major breaches have set the stage for regulations penalizing organizations when personal data in their files is compromised.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2009/08/index.html

Mindless Modeling and Headlong Hacking

9 Oct 2009 00:55:50 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 08 October 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

As a friend of mind was fond of pointing out, jobs are self-selecting. Accountants go into accounting because they like numbers, surgeons go into surgery because they like to cut, and psychiatrists go into psychiatry because they ... have issues. Various researchers make a good living by helping people understand their personality type and coming to understand what kind of work they would be good at. A good friend of mine spent five years getting an engineering degree, took an engineering job, and was bored out of his mind. On a whim, he took a personality/interest test, which told him that while it wasn't absolutely clear what kind of work he would be good at, it sure the heck wasn't engineering. He went on to be a very successful trial lawyer.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt091008.html

Netbooks, 4G Networks to Spark IT's New Generation, Part II

1 Oct 2009 20:11:28 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 01 October 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

In my last Trends Advisor ("Netbooks, 4G Networks to Spark IT's New Generation," 3 September), I suggested that the netbook, as opposed to what folks like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have been suggesting, is one of the major "disruptive technologies" of the decade. For those of you who don't know or remember, Clayton Christensen and Joseph Bower coined the term disruptive technology1 in a 1995 article in the Harvard Business Review. A disruptive technology is "an innovation that creates a new and unexpected market by applying a different set of values" (e.g., the lower-priced Ford Model T).2 The idea came to Christensen as he did research for his Ph.D. on why none of the major 5¼-inch disk manufacturers in the 1980s became players in the 3½-inch market. He concluded that it often is not the most sophisticated technology that makes the biggest impact on a market, but rather a technology that allows for a much broader market. Often these developments occur in an "overserved market," where product capability have outstripped the core usage of an existing or emerging market. The 3½-inch disk didn't provide more storage to its users than the 5¼-inch disks; rather, it served a new market that didn't need 100-megabyte disks but did need smaller, lighter disks (i.e., the market for portable computers).

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt091001.html

Defining Architectures for the Cloud, Part II

30 Sep 2009 19:23:05 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 30 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In my previous Advisor ("Defining Architectures for the Cloud, Part I," 23 September 2009), I looked at the enterprise architecture domains of business, information, and application and how cloud computing would affect those areas. This week, I'll finish the series on the cloud with the additional architectural considerations of technology, operations, security, and implementation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090930.html

Why a Top-Down Approach Leads to Death by Dogma

25 Sep 2009 01:46:34 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 24 September 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture

Recently, a well-known IT advisory group brashly announced a "new" approach to enterprise architecture that it described as "emergent" and "nondeterministic," with central IT and its architects ceding some control and choice to constituents rather than trying to design and control everything. Wow. When I read the release, I had to pinch myself and ask, "What decade am I in? This news is so 1999." I double-checked the date on the release. Sure enough, it was this year. Why is this news in 2009?

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090924.html

Defining Architectures for the Cloud, Part I

29 Sep 2009 01:41:52 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 23 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In my previous two Advisors ("Selected Innovations in Cloud Products," 9 September 2009, and "SOA and the Cloud: Getting Past the Hype," 19 August 2009), I talked about the different styles of the cloud (infrastructure as a service [IaaS], platform as a service [PaaS], software as a service [SaaS], public, and private) and some of the products that are now available in those areas. This week, I look at the cloud from an enterprise architecture perspective. To do that, I start with the typical breakdown of EA into domains of business, information, application, and technology. For each domain, I look at some of the typical questions that are answered by that architecture and that will be affected by the cloud. I also list new questions that will need to be addressed.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090923.html

Cloud Computing in the Healthcare IT Segment

23 Sep 2009 01:37:11 GMT

Bhose, Rajarshi | Executive Updates | 22 September 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Cloud computing is bringing about a radical change in how IT and computation are done today. Cloud computing is all about elastic computing, and making effective use of this elastic nature not only helps reduce cost but also harnesses huge raw computing power only when it is needed. All these features make cloud computing quite attractive to several industry verticals that are constantly on the lookout for more easy-to-use computing capabilities at a much lower cost. Healthcare IT is one such segment that can greatly benefit from cloud computing. Its effective use can bring about a landslide of change in how healthcare services are provided.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2009/bttu0911.html

Amazon and the Missing 1984s, Continued

18 Sep 2009 01:31:04 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 17 September 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In one of my recent Trends Advisors ("One Small "Oops" for Amazon, One Giant "Holy #$@%" for Mankind," 23 July 2009), I discussed the unpleasantness between Amazon and its customers who found one morning that their (now illegal) copy of George Orwell's 1984 had been somehow removed from their Kindle electronic readers. Amazon's chief Jeff Bezos has apologized for the rather heavy-handed way Amazon acted and has offered to give those customers who had had their books removed a "free" copy of the book:

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090917.html

IT Strategies for Rising Markets

17 Sep 2009 01:29:59 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 16 September 2009 | Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

"The worst may be behind us."

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090916.html

E-Mail vs. the 21st Century

1 Jul 2009 19:53:48 GMT

DeMarco, Tom; The Cutter Business Technology Council | Executive Reports | 01 July 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

E-mail -- the 20th century's killer app -- is running into serious resistance in the 21st. Young people in particular are communicating in niche media; thus, the entire domain of business communication is becoming more and more fragmented.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/reports/2009/07/index.html

What's Next on the Web? Freedom Beckons, Hazards Lurk

10 Sep 2009 19:51:23 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 10 September 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The shift from local to distributed, from physical to truly digital, is inevitable. Maintaining digital infrastructures, however commoditized, is not core to any of the beneficiaries of the Web, just as running one's own power plant makes no sense. Preteens, adolescents, and young adults don't even think about these things. Entrepreneurs think about them in passing, having already decided that they don't want to be in the technology business. Small-company managers, medium-sized business managers, large-enterprise executives, government, and NGO professionals think about maintaining the status quo more than they think about challenging it. If we think about the beneficiaries on a continuum, we find that the younger they are, the easier it is for them to exploit the Web. The oldest ones working in the largest organizations are the most resistant to what the Web offers. The ones in the middle are still on the fence -- though still salvageable.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090910.html

Sleepwalking to Failure: How to Keep a Winning Attitude on a "Losing" IT Project

9 Sep 2009 19:48:42 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 10 September 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

There was an interesting and well-written column in the New York Times editorial section a few weeks ago called "Sleepwalking Through September," by Doug Glanville (20 August 2009). Glanville is a retired American major leaguer who played baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, and the Texas Rangers over his nine-season career. Glanville isn't your typical retired baseball player, either: along with being a regular contributor to the New York Times op ed page, he also has a degree in systems engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090910.html

Selected Innovations in Cloud Products

9 Sep 2009 19:46:26 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 09 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In my last Advisor, "SOA and the Cloud: Getting Past the Hype" (19 August 2009), I introduced the main categories of cloud computing. This week, I'll cover some of the product innovations taking place in those categories. Of course, I can't begin to cover everything, so this is just a selection of things that I found interesting. I apologize in advance if I left out your favorite item.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090909.html

Netbooks, 4G Networks to Spark IT's New Generation

3 Sep 2009 19:39:47 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 03 September 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

There was a time in the early 1990s when a good laptop computer cost upwards of US $4,000. This was for a computer with a 10-inch screen, four or eight MB of memory, and a 100-MB disk. Communications for this computer were limited to a slow-speed, dial-up line. A decade later, the price for a 15-inch high-resolution with 100 MB of memory and two to four GB of hard disk and a network adapter was in the neighborhood of $2,500. Good old Moore's Law.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090903.html

Web 2.0: Yawn?

1 Aug 2009 19:34:11 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 01 September 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I've been talking with friends and colleagues over the last few days about which current IT technologies and concepts will still be in vogue two years from now. Of course, "Web 2.0" immediately came up. Most agreed that Web 2.0 has been overhyped to the point where it seems that an almost mystical quality has been imparted to the technologies (blogs, wikis, social nets, etc.) of which it is composed. But when it came to the question of whether we'll still be talking about Web 2.0 in a few years the same way we do today, there was disagreement. About half said that Web 2.0 would still be highly regarded, perhaps even more so than today, while the other half said the hype will have played itself out. I happen to agree that the hype surrounding Web 2.0 will have largely receded, but not because the concept has been proved wrong.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090901.html

New Additions to the Trends Resource Center

31 Aug 2009 16:01:53 GMT

Personal Productivity and IT: The Never-Ending Love-Hate Relationship by Gabriele Piccoli

Looking at Personal Productivity Tools and Systems by Joseph Feller

From the Cone of Silence to the Two-Minute Rule: Productivity Solutions for Information Overload by Jared Goralnick

Personal Productivity and IT: Make a Plan and Stick with It by Gabriele Piccoli

Personal Productivity and IT Survey Data

Living on the Web: Digital Life and Death in the Early 21st Century by Stephen J. Andriole

Keeping an Eye on the Cloud: Trends, Opportunities, and Constraints

27 Aug 2009 15:44:05 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 27 August 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

One of the major strengths of cloud computing is the freedom it gives companies to think strategically -- not tactically -- about how they want to leverage technology. Instead of worrying about network latency and server maintenance, business technology professionals can focus on innovation, sales, and marketing, among other revenue-generating activities (within and beyond the cloud). Another strength is flexibility. Picking from a menu is easier than designing one -- and then delivering the food. Scalability is often just a phone call or e-mail message away.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090827.html

The Voice of Risk -- Taking Lessons from the Healthcare Debate

27 Aug 2009 15:42:58 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 27 August 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The intensely fractious healthcare debate should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone whose risks ultimately touch the personal lives of others. It has been a dramatic American experience as an entire nation has staked out positions either for or against the increased government role in individual healthcare and health insurance. From a risk perspective, corporations, agencies, and individuals should be taking note, as this is a perfect example of how organizations have the opportunity to make a conscious choice about organizational tolerance in the arenas of public image, individual perception, and organizational well being. The lessons learned should relate to the classic best practices of risk in regards to incrementalism, transparency, and end-user input.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090827.html

In Uncharted Intellectual Property Waters, the Empire Strikes Back

20 Aug 2009 15:14:39 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 20 August 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Recently, I wrote an Advisor about Amazon's takeback of George Orwell's prescient novel 1984 (see "One Small "Oops" for Amazon, One Giant "Holy #$@%" for Mankind," 23 July 2009). I noted that the incident seemed to confirm predictions by Jonathan Zittrain in his book The Future of the Internet and How to Prevent It. Now, I've had a few readers suggest that Amazon was doing the right thing because the company didn't legally have the right to sell the electronic copy of the book in the first place. Now, I understand the argument, but I wonder how these same people would feel if an Amazon representative broke into their house and filched their copy of 1984 from their library or coffee table?

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090820.html

SOA and the Cloud: Getting Past the Hype

19 Aug 2009 15:11:52 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 19 August 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I suppose I ought to know better, and I do, but the marketing hype still never ceases to impress me. The latest victim: "the cloud." It is reported by our friends in the hype-cycle department that cloud computing is at the pinnacle of being overblown. This is characterized by vagueness in the marketplace, many different definitions of what it means, everyone and their brother jumping on the bandwagon, and of course the pathetic marketing literature with claims of being "in the cloud, cloud friendly, cloud based," and more. Note to marketers: here’s a dollar; buy yourself a clue!

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090819.html

Press Release: Survey Says Agile-Developed Software is Easier to Support

19 Aug 2009 15:10:00 GMT

Cutter Consortium | 19 August 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

A recent Cutter Consortium survey explored the effect of agile methods on software maintenance. In virtually all product-support categories, agile-developed software products were generally easier to maintain and customer satisfaction was generally higher (compared to traditional development methods). The objective of the survey, developed and analyzed by Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant E.M. Bennatan, was to understand the advantages (or disadvantages) of agile methods after the release of a software product.

http://www.cutter.com/press/090819.html

Apple, Google, Microsoft Vie on Competitive Killing Grounds

13 Aug 2009 15:02:50 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 13 August 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Shareholders are demanding. They want higher share prices. They ride a winner, and then when their horse fades, they switch to another horse. In this regard, public companies answer to just one master.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090813.html

Rich User Experiences and Web 2.0: Part II -- Building Useful Applications

12 Aug 2009 14:51:34 GMT

Feller, Joseph | Executive Updates | 12 August 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

This is the second Executive Update in a three-part series exploring Tim O'Reilly's statement that Web 2.0 applications must go "beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences."

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2009/bttu0910.html

Let's Take a Moment to Talk About Cyberwar

6 Aug 2009 14:44:16 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 06 August 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

As I write this Advisor, my primary computer is at my computer support organization, where it is being analyzed and cleansed of malware and viruses it has accumulated over the last six months or so. As careful as I am, these "gotcha" moments seem to come more and more frequently. Last Friday, I was on a Trends Council conference call discussing the trend by younger people not to use e-mail for electronic communication. Out of that conversation, I learned that 90% OF ALL E-MAIL TODAY IS SPAM -- 90%!

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090806.html

Understanding the Trend Toward BPM and SOA Convergence in Cultural Terms

30 Jul 2009 16:43:03 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 30 July 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture

We read much these days about business process management (BPM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) converging. Is that just hype, or does it really make sense? And if it does make sense, just what might that mean for our organization -- not just in terms of technology, but also in terms of that subtler, softer kind of thing we call "culture" -- the unwritten rules of the game?

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090730.html

Rich User Experiences and Web 2.0: Part I -- Beyond the Page Metaphor

30 Jul 2009 16:42:04 GMT

Feller, Joseph | Executive Updates | 30 July 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Nearly four years ago, Tim O'Reilly offered up a "compact definition" of Web 2.0. He wrote that it is:

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2009/bttu0909.html

One Small "Oops" for Amazon, One Giant "Holy #$@%" for Mankind

23 Jul 2009 16:31:51 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 23 July 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

If you were one of the thousands of people around the world who were in the process of reading (or researching) George Orwell's famous novel 1984 and woke up Friday, 17 July 2009, to find that it had somehow disappeared from your Kindle, take heart: this is not a bug; it is a feature -- though a feature that Amazon, we are told, is in the process of reviewing and revising.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090723.html

What Does It Mean to Be Green?

22 Jul 2009 16:26:46 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 22 July 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

What do we mean by green computing or sustainability? Does it mean a focus on energy efficiency in the data center through less heat-producing and lower power-consumption server blades? Is it virtualization and shifting computing into the cloud to reduce carbon footprint or reducing paper consumption through new paperless processes? What about recycling and reduction in the manufacturing process? Or is it all of the above? Your guess is probably as good as mine.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090722.html

Dispelling the Common Myths Regarding SaaS

16 Jul 2009 14:25:26 GMT

Kaplan, Jeffrey M. | E-Mail Advisors | 16 July 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts Cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) have captured plenty of industry and press attention, but they have also created an equal share of confusion and even controversy. While there are solid reasons to be cautious about how to approach these rapidly evolving Web-based alternatives, there is also growing evidence that they are no passing fad. Instead, cloud computing and SaaS represent a fundamental shift in the way technology and business applications will be packaged, priced, delivered, and utilized going forward.http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090716.html

Finally! Cut, Copy, Paste, and Search on iPhone

8 Jul 2009 14:11:19 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 09 July 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Never did I think that in 2009 I would be eagerly anticipating cut, copy, paste, and search within a computing device. Leave it to Apple to convert the mundane into the sublime. With version 3 of the iPhone software, iPhone users now get what the rest of the world has had for eons.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090709.html

Social Business Intelligence Will Help Disseminate BI Across the Organization

7 Jul 2009 14:01:08 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 07 July 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I've been thinking a lot about the possibilities offered by adding a "social layer" to an organization's BI environment. I'm talking about combining social computing concepts (blogs, wikis, and social networking) with BI capabilities (query, reporting, dashboards, and analysis). I also see BI search as playing a significant role in the implementation of "social BI," as well as the use of enterprise data mashups.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090707.html

Steering Business Technology Management in a 2.0 World

18 Jun 2009 20:03:26 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 18 June 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The world of business technology is dramatically changing. Everything about it is changing, including what we acquire, deploy, support, the way we support it, and -- perhaps most important -- the way we manage it all.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090618.html

New Additions

1 Jul 2009 14:49:14 GMT

Mobile Technologies: Harnessing the Potential of the Anytime/Anywhere Future by Gabriele Piccoli
The Continuing Growth of Mobile Technologies by Katia Passerini
Mobile Business: Upcoming Opportunities, Challenges, and Transition Approaches by Bhuvan Unhelkar
Mobile Technologies: Still Capturing Attention Despite Shrinking Budgets by Gabriele Piccoli
Mobile Technologies: Harnessing the Potential of the Anytime/Anywhere Future (Survey Data)
Web 2.0 in the Enterprise: What the Data Tells Us About Adoption and Impact by Stephen J. Andriole
Trends for 2009: Leveraging Four Years of Data to Better Manage the Coming Year by Gabriele Piccoli
Wise Managers in Tough Times by Dennis A. Adams
A Steady Hand in Turbulent Times by Jeroen van Tyn
A Tough 2009, with a Silver Lining for IT by Gabriele Piccoli
IT Trends for 2009 Survey Data

http://www.cutter.com/trends.html

Wolfram|Alpha and the Future of Mathematics

11 Jun 2009 19:49:00 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 11 June 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

After a number of years of near-total dominance of the Internet search space by Google, there suddenly are a number of major new announcements. Microsoft, for example, has just introduced its new search engine called Bing, which is intended to be a more "semantic" search with greater focus on presenting the results to make them more relevant and useful to the user. And Wolfram Research has announced a tool called Wolfram|Alpha that I believe will change the face of mathematical teaching and research -- as well as science and engineering -- for perhaps decades to come.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090611.html

Mining Social Media Via Sentiment Analysis

9 Jun 2009 19:41:27 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 09 June 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I've been researching the state of the art in mining social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, CNET Reviews, Epicurious, IMDb, TripAdvisor, Yahoo! Finance, Amazon, and WebMD. Today, cutting-edge organizations -- especially their marketing and PR departments -- are struggling to make sense out of what's being said about their companies and products on a variety of social media sites, sites that are now responsible for incredible amounts of user-generated content. Basically, you can consider these sites interactive forums offering a wealth of information expressing consumer sentiment, preferences, and trends, which, in effect, are helping to shape consumer behavior.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090609.html

When It Makes Sense to Throw Caution to the Wind

4 Jun 2009 16:18:25 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 04 June 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Technology adoption depends on context. When a company is in trouble, it tries lots of things to regain its competitive edge. When an industry sector is in trouble, it reinvents itself. But when trouble fails to distinguish among companies, sectors, or even continents, then drastic steps are necessary to right the ship. These days we find ourselves in a major economic crisis. Some companies are fighting themselves as they try to adapt to falling revenue and shrinking profits. Technology acquisition, deployment, and support are in the crosshairs of many companies. With technology budgets ranging anywhere from 2% to 10% of gross revenue, companies are understandably looking for ways to reduce technology costs -- despite the cultural idiosyncrasies that sometimes keep them from helping themselves.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090604.html

Consider Casting Into the System S Stream for "Perpetual Analysis"

2 Jun 2009 16:12:53 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 02 June 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

IBM has announced the availability of what the company is calling "stream computing" software that can analyze high volumes of continuously streaming data -- both structured and unstructured -- in real time. "System S" is for implementing what IBM developers call "perpetual analytics." It uses a new streaming architecture and mathematical algorithms to create a forward-looking analysis of data, and to continuously refine its findings as additional data is made available.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090602.html

For Hybrid Clouds, Fog of Confusion Is Burning Away

28 May 2009 16:05:28 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 28 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Enterprise Architecture

Most of the attention being paid to cloud computing has focused on public cloud providers, such as Amazon and Google, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors, such as Salesforce.com. However, based on my research, including feedback I've received from readers, I believe that the future of corporate IT, especially when it comes to larger companies, will be based on "hybrid clouds" -- those employing both public and private clouds to meet business goals.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090528.html

10 Trends in Rethinking IT Management in a 2.0 World

21 May 2009 15:46:53 GMT

Andriole, Steve | E-Mail Advisors | 21 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Regardless of a company's objectives, it must invest in operational and strategic technology. Operational technology has obviously become commoditized as prices have dropped and the industry has consolidated, but if acquisition, deployment, and support best practices are ignored, all of the advantages of commoditization disappear. Strategic technology is discretionary technology -- the technology of choice -- that's selected based on specific business objectives. Good decisions here enable strategy; bad ones undermine it. Good management enables the business value of technology; bad management undermines IT.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090521.html

Dirty Little Secrets

20 May 2009 15:38:02 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Updates | 20 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In the world in which we live, a world that changes almost daily, there are truths and untruths. There's hype, and there's reality. There are technologies that work, and there are technologies that stay forever in the trough of disillusionment. There are subtleties and nuances. There are smart people and nasty people.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2009/bttu0907.html

Obama Brings Internet Communications to World Diplomacy

14 May 2009 15:32:45 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 14 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Throughout history, major shifts in communication technology have brought on major changes in politics and business, exploited by imaginative politicians and businesspeople. In the 1930s, for example, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Adolph Hitler reached out via the radio to far more people than had ever heard directly from politicians. Businesses quickly began to use radio to advertise. In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy did the same thing by grasping the power of TV to reach huge audiences. And in the last US presidential election, Barack Obama created a new kind of political campaign that made up for his lack of experience and deep pockets by exploiting the Internet in all its dimensions: e-mail, instant messaging, social networking, video over the Internet, and so on. Now we are just beginning to see the possibilities of using this new technology to change governing and foreign policy as well.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090514.html

Your Move: Client Options for Vendors That Have Raised Annual Support Fees

13 May 2009 15:31:37 GMT

Simon, Phil | E-Mail Advisors | 13 May 2009 | Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Vendors such as Lawson and SAP have recently announced increases in their annual support fees to many already struggling clients. In any economy, organizations would meet these increases with skepticism. This article details options for organizations in response to these potential increases.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090513.html

On-Demand, Cloud-Based BI and Data Warehousing: Prime-Time Players in a Down Economy or Over-Hyped Technologies?

12 May 2009 15:19:15 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 12 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Business Intelligence

Organizations today may choose from a broad range of on-demand and "cloud-based" BI and data warehousing options, ranging from reporting, dashboards, and focused analytic applications (offered as licensable services) to hosted data integration services and full-blown managed data warehouses. These on-demand providers hope to benefit from a down economy by offering organizations a way to forgo having to implement costly data warehousing and BI applications inhouse, in effect offering to "rent" them a "solution" to help with their data integration, data management, and reporting and analysis needs.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090512.html

A Flu Pandemic: To Risk or Not Risk -- That Is the Question

7 May 2009 16:04:14 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 07 May 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

As I write this Advisor, the news about a possible swine flu pandemic is changing almost by the hour. As of today, World Health Organization (WHO) officials and medical specialists in Mexico and the US are cautiously optimistic that the new strain of swine flu -- now officially called influenza A (H1N1) -- may turn out to be a mild form with health effects more typical of an influenza B-type virus.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090507.html

Whole New Dimensions of Interaction: Microsoft Surface, Nintendo Wii-Fit, and Apple

7 May 2009 16:03:15 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 07 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Innovation

Recently, I was in Tampa and Chicago during the same week to speak at data management and business process conferences. It gave me a chance to find out what some of the best and brightest in the business were forecasting for the future of technology. I would imagine that all told there were more than 1,000 technology folks at these conferences. The numbers were down from last year, but still impressive. Despite the brainpower at these conferences, however, I was most taken by the breakthrough technologies that I stumbled onto in a hotel lobby and in a friend's exercise room.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090507.html

Harnessing Your Architecture Repository to Value

30 Apr 2009 15:52:20 GMT

Rosen, Michael | E-Mail Advisors | 30 April 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture

As more and more enterprises realize a need for architecture, the vendors of tools that support architecture are jumping on the opportunity. I'm seeing a growing trend in the acquisition of enterprise architecture repositories. Unfortunately, I haven't yet seen most organizations realize the value that these tools can bring. As always, technology itself does not provide business value; it only enables solutions. It is how you use the technology that brings value, and repositories are no exception.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090430.html

Oracle Buys Sun: So What Happens with MySQL?

28 Apr 2009 15:47:04 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 28 April 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In a strange twist of fate, the annual MySQL Conference was just getting underway in Santa Clara, California, USA, when news hit that Oracle Corporation was acquiring Sun and, along with it, MySQL. That the most aggressive enterprise software company was buying the world's leading open source database struck like lightning. After all, it had been only about 16 months since Sun had acquired MySQL for US $1 billion, and proponents of the open source database were still griping about Sun's efforts to steer and develop the technology. So it's quite understandable that MySQL fans should be a bit apprehensive about what Oracle might have in store for the database. Here's what I think will happen with MySQL under Oracle's stewardship.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090428.html

Googleplex, We Have a Problem!

23 Apr 2009 15:40:26 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 23 April 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence

Before you do anything else, please go and read the Boston Globe article headlined "Electronic Health Records Raise Doubt" (13 April 2009). It is the story of one fellow who decided to take advantage of Google's vaunted Google Health free health records systems -- and it is not encouraging. The Globe's story revolves around one Dave deBronkart, who decided to transfer his medical records from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to Google Health. When he went to look at his records, he was shocked to find a large number of serious mistakes:

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090423.html

As the 'Net Kills Newspapers, Who Pays for Free?

16 Apr 2009 15:04:35 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 16 April 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I am, by all accounts, a news junkie. I take two papers every day and three on Sundays. I subscribe to a number of magazines and any number of news feeds. My startup page on the Internet is "Google News." I have the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist as my favorites. I watch CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC on a regular basis. Earlier in my life, I contemplated moving to a college town with a good library for my retirement. Not anymore; I have the world's greatest library at my fingertips and better yet the world's greatest library index system: Google.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090416.html

"The Web as Platform": What Does It Mean? -- Part III

16 Apr 2009 15:03:46 GMT

Feller, Joseph | Executive Updates | 16 April 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

This is the final Executive Update in a series exploring the idea of "the Web as platform," one of the cornerstone concepts of Web 2.0.1 In Part I,2 I discussed what it means to view the Web -- in its entirety -- as a platform. Then, in Part II,3 I presented the idea of individual Web sites as platforms.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2009/bttu0906.html

In Today's Economic Jungle, Time to Take on BPR Tiger Again

14 Apr 2009 13:19:59 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 09 April 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business-IT Strategies

It's déjà vu all over again. The cycle has repeated. The economy is and will continue to shed jobs. Businesses are trying to get leaner. Again, IT is expected to not only shrink itself, but help other units in the firm shrink themselves. A key approach for doing so involves reengineering the business process (BPR).

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090409.html

In Time of Testing, Remember Values, Communication, Slack, Part I

26 Mar 2009 14:31:40 GMT

Spica, Daniel | E-Mail Advisors | 26 March 2009 | Agile Project Management; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business-IT Strategies; Innovation

It is sad but true that the economic crisis has now also appeared in Poland. Somehow, many of us here in Poland have been under the mistaken assumption that we would be undisturbed by the current economic crisis; that this was only an American and Western European problem. Of course, it couldn't remain that way. The unfortunate side of globalization is that the entire globe experiences the good with the bad. No one can predict how long the current crisis will last, just as no one was able to predict that the catastrophe would occur. The experience shows, however, that we should not count on the economic wizards or at least not to worry too much about their words. In my opinion, the best solution is to work hard and wisely. And while you are working, continue to think about a few rules that remain true.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090326.html

Reality Mining: Analyzing Data About Everything

26 Mar 2009 14:29:26 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 26 March 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence

The biggest trend to hit business intelligence (BI) since the days of executive information systems may not be an innovation in the technology itself but in the kinds of data the technology analyzes. The new BI foreshadows a time when, for example, a disease epidemic will be stopped because data can reveal to health officials the movements of infected people. Welcome to the world of "reality mining."

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090326.html

Semantics Is Hot; Data and Objects Are Not, Part I: The Emergence of the Semantic Web

19 Mar 2009 14:13:32 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 19 March 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence; Enterprise Architecture

(This is the first in a series of Trends Advisors that will deal with the complex landscape of content, unstructured and structured, that confront organizations and individuals as we move from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 and beyond. Future Advisors will deal with the growing schism between developers and database experts.)

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090319.html