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In the IT world, we learn this from experience--the weakest link in a chain will be the one to fail, and the longer and more complex the chain, the greater the chance of a critical meltdown somewhere along the way. The most robust and stable solutions don't necessarily use the newest, cutting-edge products, tools and technologies. In fact, aside from finding creative ways to keep staff from jumping ship, the greatest challenge currently facing IT development managers may well be management of complexity.

In the cross-platform, multi-language, Internet-enabled, n-tier, distributed datasource, componentized-code world, simplicity can be as elusive as it is crucial. But the IT vendors that supply products that adhere to the maxim KISS--"Keep It Simple, Stupid"--will be the big success stories. Middleware and development tool vendors that supply "shovelware"--bundles of disconnected products as complete solutions--will find themselves losing out to those vendors that can produce truly integrated, manageable products. Better to do a few things truly well than try to be all things to all people and consequently offer an inferior product.

Many of our recent middleware reviews have rated management features right up there with performance and stability, reflecting our stand that making products capable of centralized, coherent development processes and straightforward system management has at least as much impact on overall project and system success as raw speed. Most shops don't have the resources to throw increasing numbers of staff at new systems--the existing staff needs to be able to manage both the new and the old systems and infrastructure, so what gets rolled out to the enterprise had better be easy to manage.

The Palm Pilot from 3Com (now Palm Computing) is a good example of simplicity resulting in success. After a series of failures by various companies to produce a handheld computer that anybody outside narrow vertical industries would buy, 3Com got it right. 3Com did this not by increasing functionality to meet everyone's needs, but by simplifying the design until it had a product that was small, fast, cheap and reliable. Microsoft attempted to follow suit with Windows CE, but even after several attempts, Microsoft still hasn't been able to hit that same mark of usability, low price and speed, and the relative sales figures bear witness. This is a case where more is not better--where throwing more hardware, features and marketing at the problem doesn't compensate for increased complexity in development and use.

And now that there's a mass market for PDAs, we're starting to see the innovations and economies of scale in technology, services and software that will drive these units to more widespread acceptance in homes...and in IT shops. What were once gimmicky executive organizers and high-tech toys are now moving into many mainstream IT shops as useful, capable, almost disposably inexpensive computing resources for mobile workers. But again, managing the complexity is key--in this case, that means finding ways to deal effectively with hundreds or thousands of occasionally connected, highly portable devices migrating within the enterprise. Products that can help administer and manage mobile users with laptops and/or handhelds across a distributed enterprise are becoming essential simplifying tools. See our recent workshop on managing handheld devices entitled, "Getting That Syncing Feeling?", ( http://www.networkcomputing.com/1101/1101ws1.html) for more information, and keep an eye out for our upcoming review of software to manage nomadic PCs.

By the way, if you are a Palm Pilot user, check out the new, full-size folding keyboard, at http://www.thinkoutside.com, for a pretty amazing example of simple, elegant engineering innovation.

Web-site content management is another area in which controlling complexity is key. As Web sites grow increasingly intricate, moving from static collections of vanilla HTML pages to dynamic, frequently updated, data-driven products, it becomes more important to have some form of centralized content control and management in place. Home-grown solutions (or no solution) used to be the norm, but products that offer flexible, robust asset management, change control, versioning/rollback, approval and publishing and site monitoring/maintenance tools are maturing and becoming virtually essential even for medium-sized sites. Automating change approval routing, page versioning and the publishing process could simplify your life enormously. Watch for our review of Web-site content management products in an upcoming issue.

Send your comments on this column to Richard Hoffman at rhoffman@nwc.com.