In this Executive Update, Senior Consultant Stowe Boyd, one of Cutter Consortium's experts on business knowledge and information technology, discusses knowledge management and its potential effect on business-IT alignment.

An interview with Maxwell Hughes, Senior Consultant, Business-IT Alignment Advisory Service

The new baseball season is here, and most of us (even those without much knowledge about the sport) could probably select the teams that will finish at the bottom of the standings. You know the ones -- they have few fans, when they do something right their efforts are usually not appreciated, everyone thinks they cost too much, and there are frequent rumors that the franchise may be moved to another city.

Yes, I'm currently the chief architect on a project for a large utility in the Midwest. It's the software to implement electrical deregulation.

In many cases, vendors are acquiring other companies to add new technology to their product line. Most of the vendors are trying to develop more complete data warehouse suites. This is mirroring a trend in the industry -- they're all moving away from offering point solutions.

The water is getting muddy -- the application delivery water that is. Actually, the water is more than muddy, it's turbulent. Turbulence, at least in river rafting, makes things exciting.

In this Executive Update, Senior Consultant Roger Sessions, one of Cutter Consortium's experts on middle-tier software systems, discusses how companies are faring in their quest to get component-oriented systems to work efficiently in a distributed environment.

In this Executive Update, Senior Consultant Chris Pickering, one of the Cutter Consortium's experts on the effective use of information technology, discusses the latest trends in the "culture war" between business and IT and dispels the myth of central planning.

Q. What kind of cultural issues are you seeing lately?