The IT Capability Maturity Framework (IT-CMF), developed by the Innovation Value Institute (IVI) and based on the work of Intel’s Global Director of IT Innovation and Research, Martin Curley, received its European launch this month (June 2009) at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The launch coincided with a grant from the Irish government of €1 million, to establish the IVI as a competency centre for research into innovation.
TECHwatch Articles - published 08/06/2009 - Tim Jennings
From an initially narrow range of geographical and sector divisions, generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) on the Internet are beginning to proliferate in several different directions. Over the last few years, the familiar .com, .co.uk, .gov, .org and similar suffixes have been joined by identifiers such as .info, .biz, and .name, along with a number of more specialist domains. Indeed, a hotly-debated scheme by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) (the non-profit body responsible f…
TECHwatch Articles - published 06/02/2009 - Tim Jennings
Amidst a continuing flow of legislation and regulation, the effectiveness of compliance initiatives in many organisations is being called into question, whilst the costs of supporting these efforts threaten to rise sharply. The problem is exacerbated by a number of factors: firstly, successive external mandates have often been tackled individually, with responsibility allocated to different areas of the business. This has resulted in a highly siloed environment, with individual business controls overlapp…
TECHwatch Articles - published 07/01/2009 - Tim Jennings
As I write this article, Nigeria’s only geostationary satellite, NigComSat-1, is reported to have failed: the satellite was launched in May 2007, amid significant controversy. Particularly the financial burden weighs heavily on the minds of detractors – with an initial budget of some US$200 million, the satellite is finally believed to have cost US$450 million.
TECHwatch Articles - published 08/12/2008 - Terry White
In the prevailing economic climate, there is pressure on organisations of all sizes to make savings in IT costs. At the very least this will involve seeking greater efficiency and moderating any increase in the IT budget, whilst in other cases it will result in a requirement for significant cost cutting across multiple areas of the IT function. However, with IT ever more deeply embedded into key business operations, making the wrong choices for cutbacks can have a damaging effect, literally putting the o…
TECHwatch Articles - published 08/12/2008 - Tim Jennings
The automation of transactional processes has been the predominant role for IT through much of the modern era, moving from relatively unsophisticated and rigid systems, through to the increased flexibility and insight provided by today’s Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Intelligence (BI) solutions. In this context, a transaction is defined as an identifiable exchange of value between two parties, and whilst the ability to sense and operate with physical processes in the real world is prompt…
TECHwatch Articles - published 10/11/2008 - Tim Jennings
One of the most difficult aspects of any business initiative, whether or not it involves IT, is trying to quantify the benefits achieved. Although it is frequently (but erroneously) taken for granted, at the very outset of any project there should be a clear understanding of why it is being undertaken within the organisation – what is the high level business objective or strategy to which this initiative will contribute. As part of the business case, there is then the task of establishing the specific b…
TECHwatch Articles - published 23/10/2008 - Tim Jennings
More than any other group, Business Intelligence (BI) professionals understand that delivering successful projects is less dependent on technology than it is on managing organisational and business culture issues. Even those working on the foundations of BI initiatives spend much of their effort on educating users and putting in place the supporting processes that will help people to make effective use of their solutions.
TECHwatch Articles - published 05/09/2008 - Tim Jennings
The past month has seen a raft of announcements from companies making large investments in cloud computing infrastructure: a model whereby processing power, storage, and associated management tools are provided to users as a hosted service. Firstly came news of a joint initiative from HP, Intel, and Yahoo, in conjunction with a number of government and academic partners, of a global cloud computing research network involving six data centres, each with between 1,000 and 4,000 processor cores, and up to 2…
TECHwatch Articles - published 11/08/2008 - Tim Jennings
The convergence of three architectural waves is gathering momentum to significantly change the software application landscape, but if organisations are to reap the benefit of this change, it is the traditional disciplines of management, measurement, and governance that will be essential.
TECHwatch Articles - published 03/07/2008 - Tim Jennings
Although it has taken almost eight years to mature, Microsoft’s SharePoint range of portal, document management, and collaboration solutions has now reached the sort of critical mass that gives the ecosystem surrounding the product a life of its own. With question marks over the additional value of migrating to Windows Vista, and a sense that the basic Office tools will come increasingly under threat from a commoditised market, it is SharePoint that has been the standout performer in Microsoft’s client s…
TECHwatch Articles - published 06/06/2008 - Tim Jennings
Recent update briefings from Oracle have indicated that the company’s diverse portfolio of applications and middleware, the result of three years of almost non-stop acquisition, is now being translated into a more stable and effective set of solutions for its customers. Oracle’s efforts to make the transition from technology provider to strategic supplier are paying off now that it has a credible pitch spanning database, middleware, and applications. This pitch is backed by deliverables that establish Fu…
TECHwatch Articles - published 12/05/2008 - Angela Eager, Rob Hailstone, Tim Jennings
Considerable attention is quite rightly being paid to the topic of data quality in the Business Intelligence (BI) field, since the adage of garbage in garbage out is considerably amplified when data from multiple sources is integrated, aggregated, and processed to create higher level analysis and business insight. There is now a much better appreciation of the need to improve and then maintain data quality in underlying systems, if consistent and trusted reporting, querying, and analytics are to be key m…
TECHwatch Articles - published 08/04/2008 - Tim Jennings
Sample our Research
Sign up to receive complimentary monthly Research and download a copy of our 10 Axioms for Measuring IT Cost and Value.
