Expect to hear the term governance thrown around a lot next year, and be prepared to implement a product that supports and manages governance initiatives. Executives and board-level types typically use these tools, but as always, it's up to IT to implement the infrastructure to support these apps.
Rounding out the process-oriented initiatives for 2005 is supply-chain management. SCM is all about connecting the dots from the warehouse to the channel. Because it requires the participation of dozens, if not hundreds, of external entities, SCM implementations will be fraught with integration woes. An SOA initiative is one approach used to minimize integration hassles, but it's no panacea.
RFID (radio frequency identification) is perhaps the most recognizable technology in the SCM game today, with software developers like Manhattan Associates, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Tibco and WebMethods having already jumped into the RFID middleware arena. But while some consider RFID ideal for handling the granular tracking of goods through the supply chain, others are skeptical. Consumer advocates, for example, worry that RFID's ability to track goods from the corporate data center into consumer's homes could invade privacy. Security is another concern: Once an RFID-tagged item enters the wild, just who can read the information stored on it? But with the big-name software vendors on board, and IBM, Microsoft and Oracle possibly releasing RFID middleware next year, RFID implementations could pick up steam in 2005.
An entire software market has emerged with a single goal in mind: to assist organizations in complying with myriad regulations. Two years ago, it was the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA); today it's Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and California's 1386 (CA1386) initiative. The PATRIOT Act still quietly holds sway over customer lists and interactions within the finance and trade industries. SOX and CA1386 have moved to the forefront of compliance-driven initiatives and will continue to be a hot button throughout 2005.
It isn't just about relational databases, though by nature they become the focal point of compliance-based projects. E-mail and IM (instant messaging) are also being targeted, especially in those organizations where they're commonly used to conduct business. You'll need to do detailed logging here in case the auditors come digging for records--SOX requires that every change and access to financial data, for example, be logged, and in some cases the entire SQL statement as well. That's a heavy burden on the enterprise, since sometimes it means modifying custom applications or agents/plug-ins for databases.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
