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Innovation even more valuable in hard times

• By Michael W. Bucken
• April 1, 2002

Despite economic and technical roadblocks, this business has long been dependent on innovators, those willing to take some considerable risks to move their companies and industries forward. This month, Application Development Trends pays tribute to corporate IT development organizations that have pushed the technical envelope, so to speak, to give their firm a competitive advantage.

This eighth annual ADT Innovator awards issue profiles organizations that have used key development technologies to build important products, save significant sums of money, and/or allow the same number of workers to produce substantially more goods and/or services. The winners underwent a rigorous evaluation process by a team of consultants from Keane Inc. and the editors here at ADT.

As always, many thanks go to the group of top Keane consultants headed by Mitch Haskett, director of architecture services, and our editors who spent long hours evaluating the comprehensive questionnaires submitted and interviewing the principals involved. The winning organizations profiled in this issue certainly earned their awards.

Our hope is that these profiles will spur other companies to utilize emerging technologies and processes to build better software for your companies. Innovation in these hard times can mean the difference between success and bankruptcy for some organizations. Our congratulations go out to all of the winners, and our thanks to all of those who submitted projects for review. You're all doing the right thing. To stand still only hurts us all.

And speaking of innovation, regular contributor Tony Baer takes a look at the pros and cons of the complex world of real-time analysis (See "Analyzing data in real time"). Baer wonders whether real-time analysis is for everyone. It's very expensive, the development is extremely difficult, and for some industries, the performance change may be less than significant. This story is a must read for any IT unit contemplating a move to real-time technology.

On a personal note, please accept my apologies for the inadvertent publishing of the February editorial in the March issue of ADT. Without going through the full publishing process, some changes were made on the production side that were not picked up during the hectic final day of work before the issue is sent to the printer. We assure you that such a mistake won't happen again.

Best regards,

Michael W. Bucken