The landscape is still evolving, with newer technologies such as peer-to-peer networking and service-oriented architectures coming into place.

Prior to the introduction of e-commerce, an enterprise's IT capabilities were safely housed in its own secure premises—not being exposed to the outside world. Enterprises had the luxury of time—to embrace contemporary technologies such as object-oriented design, component methodologies, and distributed computing.

But now, with the competitors in business heavily exploiting the opportunities available with the Internet by investing in latest technologies, one would be left out if they don't match the IT capabilities of their competitors.

Hence there is the tremendous pressure for enterprises to deliver cutting-edge, distributed applications that will expose their core business features and facilities to the Web. These applications need to be accessed remotely—not only by means of a browser, but even through palmtops, mobile phones, PDAs...and what next?

All these issues have forced IT managers to rethink, redefine, and revamp their core system architecture and the way applications have been built and deployed. Going forward, he or she will be faced with a number of challenges, imposed by the existing needs of today and an evolving tomorrow.

ADORESOFT