E-Business Brings IT to the Forefront
Cutter Consortium announced that its survey on distributed computing architecture shows the Internet has prompted a shift in the way business perceives IT. The Internet, viewed by many senior business managers as the means to jump on the e-business bandwagon, is bringing IT to the forefront, where it is now driving some aspects of business.
IT managers are likely to find greater support for distributed computing initiatives when presented as the means to achieving e-business solutions. At the Cutter Consortium Summit ’99 held in Boston, Paul Harmon, Senior Consultant on Cutter Consortium’s Distributed Computing Architecture Advisory Service asserted that, "CEOs who don’t know anything about components do know that the Internet will radically change the way they do business, and they are willing to pay for help getting up to speed with large e-business applications"
"Distributed component enthusiasts have been trying to sell their technology to IT managers. Suddenly, it’s reversed and CEOs are demanding that their IT departments develop e-business applications. Now, IT managers are grabbing at distributed computing as the only way to satisfy their executives’ demands," Harmon continued.
In fact, the results of Cutter’s distributed computing architecture survey show that for an increasing number of businesses, the Internet can address distributed computing by providing a universal network. Approximately 77 percent of 138 survey respondents considered there to be some overlap of distributed enterprise systems with component or object-oriented systems, as well as with the Internet (or intranet) systems.
"I think the key to differentiate between smaller Internet systems and enterprise Internet systems," said Harmon. "You can build a Web site or small Internet system without either distributed systems or components. However, once you begin to build a large-scale application, such as a bank system that’s going to support e-business, you’re likely to mix the Internet, CORBA and components, using the Internet to handle network communication," explained Harmon.
Visit Cutter Consortium’s Web site at www.cutter.com/consortium.