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October 30, 2003

Intelligent Candles

Amid the rush, we almost forgot an important Intelligent Enterprise birthday

by David Stodder

Five years? No kidding! As one gets older, I guess it becomes easier (perhaps preferable) to let birthdays slip by unnoticed. However, five years is a milestone in the life of a publication and its community of writers, readers, and advertisers. I'm guilty. I forgot about this one.

Yes, it was in October 1998 that Intelligent Enterprise came into being, building on the merger of its two predecessors, DBMS and Database Programming & Design. Back then, we had some explaining to do; many in our community were quite comfortable identifying themselves — and their favorite magazines — by technology specialty: databases, applications, data warehouses, and so on. This publication broke with that tradition. We declared that it was time to refocus — to pull our collective vision out of technology silos and onto a bigger objective. We gave that destination a name: the intelligent enterprise.

"We are embarking on a vital and creative period of change," I wrote in the premier issue. "Once distinct categories of technology are now being cross-pollinated to produce brand-new species." As we look around today's IT universe, we see objectives such as business performance management and process management forcing producers of databases, enterprise applications, integration middleware, business intelligence solutions, and the rest to think beyond benchmarks, magic quadrant category distinctions, and technology innards. The time has come to tackle higher objectives, such as how to make an enterprise full of users smarter and more productive; how to optimize supply chains and drive higher collaborative value; and how to improve customer relationships through mutually beneficial knowledge exchange and intelligent actions.

Business/IT Synergy

"Seize the day!" was the premier issue cover theme. Today, even more organizations understand that competitive advantage, market growth, and profitability hinge on business and IT leaders rising above loyalty to particular technologies and familiar grooves to focus on strategic challenges. And to do it right now: Corporate compliance, for example, has been a wake-up call to improve data quality and integration and to move critical financial analysis, planning, and management off singular dependence on spreadsheets.

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What's interesting is that we see innovation even as the community broods about how IT "doesn't matter" and, due to commoditization, no longer offers competitive advantage. Rather, I would agree with Dell Inc. president and COO Kevin B. Rollins, who said in a recent TechXNY keynote (Sept. 16) that "maturation is not a negative phenomenon — it's simply how the business cycle works." And later: "Flour and sugar are both commodities, but aren't they something more when they come together in a Krispy Kreme doughnut?"

Yes, especially with five candles on it. We are in the midst of the "intelligent enterprise revolution" as organizations focus on making the information supply chain enrich processes and close the loop linking strategy and action. Exciting times and the mad dash to get good content in your hands make it easy to forget to salute all who have contributed during our five years! Look for special content when we reach our next milestone, the 100th issue, in the spring of 2004.