The application portfolios of large IT organizations are coming under increasing scrutiny as tempting targets for streamlining to increase agility and reduce waste. Applications professionals often seek to assign a label to each application that indicates its medium- to long-term long fate. Forrester has defined "four fates" organizations can assign to an application: leave it as is, modernize it, replace it, and retire it. It's important that, when considering the fates, applications professionals view them as indicators of longer-term strategic intent and avoid confusing them with the day-to-day tactics that may seem out of step with an application's particular fate.