For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Criteria for Selection: EAI and EAI/BPM Solutions

by Ken Vollmer, Henry Peyret, February 2, 2004

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Market Overview: Buy-Side Contract Life-Cycle Management Faces Fast Growth But Rapid Consolidation

by Andrew Bartels, February 2, 2004

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Market Overview: Business Process Management

by Ken Vollmer, Sharyn Leaver, Connie Moore, Henry Peyret, February 2, 2004

Offshore Communications Plan Must be Rooted in Outsourcing Strategy

by Stephanie Moore, Bill Martorelli, January 30, 2004

Companies embarking on an offshore outsourcing initiative must make developing and executing a communication strategy a top priority.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Market Overview 2004: Enterprise Content Delivery Networks

by Thomas Mendel, Ph.D., January 30, 2004

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Market Overview 2004: Internet Content Delivery Networks

by Thomas Mendel, Ph.D., January 30, 2004

Best Practices: Desktop Security

by David Friedlander, Jan Sundgren, January 30, 2004

Companies that fail to address the security issues that affect distributed computing environments will see the cost of desktop security-incident management rise by 30% or more annually, as the number of attacks continue to increase through at least 2005.

Microsoft Licensing: More for the Money

by Julie Giera, January 30, 2004

Microsoft customers should take the time to evaluate or re-evaluate Software Assurance and determine how its individual features will affect their organizations before making any decisions concerning its purchase or renewal.

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Case Studies: New Models for Portal and E-Learning Integration Deliver Value

by Laura Ramos, Claire Schooley, January 29, 2004

Emerging case studies that integrate e-learning and portals show how the spectrum of corporate learning now spans from the basic, formal classroom-like settings to fully integrated learning where job activity and learning become one.

IT Trends 2004: Server Systems

by Richard Fichera, January 29, 2004

Server technology innovation we saw in 2001 to 2003 has entered a consolidation phase, with recent activity centered on enhancements and continued improvements in price-performance and manageability rather than breakthrough architectures.

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

The Challenge of the LCMS Decision

by Claire Schooley, Robert Markham, January 29, 2004

Before choosing an LCMS, evaluate your commitment to content creation. To gain robust training administration, tracking and reporting features, choose an LCMS that has LMS features built in or one that integrates well with an LMS.

Criteria for Selection: Operating System Security

by Michael Rasmussen, Jan Sundgren, January 28, 2004

A framework of selection criteria can help organizations evaluate operating system security and articulate their demands to vendors. Such a framework addresses the functional aspects of the operating system.

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Criteria for Selection: Database Performance Management Tools

by Noel Yuhanna, January 26, 2004

The most important evaluation criteria when choosing database performance management tools are: ease of use and corrective action features, integrated performance management suite, heterogeneous DBMS support and acquisition and operational cost.

Deriving Business Value From the X Internet With the Right Business Intelligence Architecture

by Keith Gile, Mike Gilpin, January 22, 2004

The right business intelligence (BI) software architecture will enable companies to leverage data from the X Internet to dynamically react to time-sensitive issues, while improving overall business performance.

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Packaged Composite Applications Emerge - Slowly

by Erin Kinikin, Laura Ramos, January 22, 2004

Packaged composite applications deliver on the promise of Internet ubiquity - backed by the power of process - with a more flexible connection to underlying transactional applications and content sources.

Market Trends 2004: Content Security

by Jonathan Penn, Jan Sundgren, January 20, 2004

While the desire to stop spam will continue to drive buying decisions and product selection, there will be a shift from point antispam products of startups to richer content security suites offered by well-established security vendors.

Opportunities and Challenges in the Offshore Technical Help Desk

by Bill Martorelli, John Ragsdale, January 19, 2004

Although outsourcing the technical help desk is risky ¿ particularly if it involves offshore resources ¿ the market for outsourced offshore technical help desk services is poised for significant growth.

The Rebirth of E-Mail Outsourcing

by Bill Martorelli, Jonathan Penn, January 14, 2004

Today's decision about whether to outsource e-mail and messaging infrastructure is less about cost and availability - two principal drivers in the marketplace of 2000 - but more about allocating scarce resources to highly strategic activities.

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Will the Real Enterprise Content Management Please Stand Up?

by Connie Moore, Robert Markham, January 13, 2004

For the true potential of ECM to be realized, vendors must transform their individual products into a holistic ECM architecture that eliminates the duplication of functionality, provides a universal content repository, and offers a single user-interface.

Reading Between the Lines: Assessing Carrier Responsiveness

by Bernt Ostergaard, January 9, 2004

Giga telco analysts have identified the most common RFP response turn-offs, and drawn up a number of recommendations. The most important evaluation points are technical details, timeliness, discounts, customization and end-to-end service assessments.

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Best Practices: Customer Data Quality Management

by Elana Anderson, January 8, 2004

Companies must formalize ownership of customer data quality at a corporate business level, build customer data quality activities into the project methodology and process, and apply tools, logic and processes to the application architecture.

IT Trends 2004: The Evolving Outsourced Workplace

by Robert McNeill, January 8, 2004

Desktop outsourcing will grow at a compound growth rate of 5 percent in 2004. The increased attention of IBM, EDS and HP pushing workplace on demand messaging will drive organizations to consider desktop management as a candidate for outsourcing.

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Secure Web Services: Functional Design Priorities

by Randy Heffner, January 8, 2004

Many early, simple Web Services will make do with surface-level protection, simple authentication, node-to-node confidentiality and coarse-grained authorization. Sensitive Web Services may find business reasons to consider a much wider range of issues.

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Secure Web Services: Current and Future Architectures

by Randy Heffner, January 8, 2004

Future secure Web Services architectures will combine application platforms, identity management platforms, XML application firewalls/gateways and EASI. Architects may begin now to build a vision and a migration path around such a combination.

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Enterprise Application Vendor Assessment 2004: PeopleSoft

by Paul D. Hamerman, Byron Miller, January 7, 2004

While PeopleSoft will not threaten SAP¿s dominant position, it must develop a more innovative vision and technology strategy to enhance its market position during the next two to three years.