Careers: Do any organizations have an IT Effectiveness manager and, if so, where in the org chart does that position fit? A readers asks of Bob Lewis. "Not that I know of, but ... " That hefty task, after all, is "a core responsibility of the CIO and IT management team," Lewis answers in this Advice Line post. Not that it's an altogether bad idea. ITIL, systems management efforts, and other implementation projects are often put into separate units. "I suppose you could view the project teams as temporary departments."

Hardware: "I've been reading that satellites are tracking a massive Spider riding in with a Canadian cold front, and a plot of its trajectory has it reaching my address tomorrow morning," Tom Yager begins. The spider to which he refers, of course, is that of AMD. "I am told that it's pointless to try to stop it. I must let it in and watch a horrific scene play out: Everything here with an Intel logo on it will fling itself at the invader, cocksure of victory, but will end up writhing in an impenetrable web, stunned and wrapped to be made a meal at Spider's whim." Yager claims not to be squeamish. I say we'll just see about that. AMD Spider weaves its own worldwide web. "Spider already has me in its clutches."

Data management: With its series of technical previews, Microsoft is baking more BI into SQL Server 2008, thereby "reducing the breathing room for tools vendors who have stayed focused on reporting," Sean Gallager explains, referring also to IBM buying Cognos, Oracle acquiring Hyperion and SAP nabbing Business Objects. "Microsoft refers to the collective BI features of SQL Server 2008 as Pervasive Insight." The forthcoming iteration will bring new tools for creating more optimized analysis cubes and cross-database aggregations, added atop a pile of potentially performance-boosting technologies that SQL Server could really use. Those and other new goodies, "just might be enough to keep [novice users] from wandering off to find something else."

Posted by Tom Sullivan on November 29, 2007 04:54 AM