Many companies have achieved considerable success in using BI (business intelligence) tools. Wal-Mart, General Electric, and Cisco have all expended huge sums on BI solutions, and give these systems a great deal of credit in helping them successfully manage their business. Siebel Systems, by virtue of tight controls on processes and doing things right from the start, has also created an internal BI system that is a model for what many companies are trying to do. [Full story at InfoWorld.com...]

I've started to write an occasional article for InfoWorld. I'm excited to be able to write about enterprise computing issues and the chance to see some interesting, new things. Jon Udell turned me on to this opportunity and I'm grateful. The figure at the right is a representation of the hierarchy of IT needs I mention in the article. This is similar to the concept I layed out in the Road to the Future document I prepared for the IT Commission last November. I intend to do a longer white paper on this hierarchy soon because I think its a useful high-level roadmap for guiding IT investment.