Technology Forecast: 2003–2005 is the latest in a series that the PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Technology Centre has published annually for more than a dozen years. This year’s book provides in-depth coverage of enterprise applications and enabling software and forecasts significant developments in those areas over the next three years. It also contains information of particular interest to senior executives, including CFO Perspectives for each of the chapters and a chapter on business reporting and XBRL.
As the pace of business quickens, companies must eliminate information lag and make more timely decisions. Business intelligence technologies—business activity monitoring, event notification, and digital dashboards—provide executives with real-time information about the status of key business processes, including their relations with customers and suppliers. New business integration technologies, including increased use of XML-based Web services, are making end-to-end automation of business processes easier to accomplish. Meanwhile, the incorporation of analytic capabilities into virtually all enterprise applications, as well as advances in knowledge management and collaborative technologies, increase the speed and effectiveness of decision-making.
Technology Forecast: 2003–2005 discusses these and other changes under way in enterprise IT. It is divided into three sections, each highlighting a different area of enterprise software, that together comprise ten chapters providing detailed coverage of specific technologies and applications:
Enterprise Applications contains chapters on enterprise suites, including enterprise suite architectures, supply chain event and performance management, and enterprise resource planning; customer-facing applications; and business intelligence and enterprise analytics, including real-time business intelligence and business activity monitoring.
Information Management comprises chapters on enterprise content management; knowledge management and e-learning; and collaborative technologies.
Enabling Software includes chapters on XML and Web services; component frameworks, including J2EE and Microsoft .net; application and portal servers; and business integration technologies, including business process modeling, monitoring, and management.
In addition, the book features interviews with three leading figures in IT:
Vivek Ranadivé—Founder, chairman and CEO of TIBCO Software. A recognized industry leader, Ranadivé was selected by InfoWorld as one of the top ten technology innovators in 2002. He was also recognized by Ernst & Young as a 2002 software entrepreneur of the year. His book The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology (McGraw-Hill, 1999) has been widely used as a business school textbook.
Tony Scott—CTO for General Motors’ Information Systems and Services organization, where he is responsible for defining the enterprise architecture and standards across all of GM’s global business. His work at GM has included the development of its employee portal and wireless strategy, and he directs the company’s involvement in IT standards bodies and technology consortium organizations.
Ronald Weissman—A venture partner with Apax Partners, a leading international private equity and venture capital firm with offices throughout Europe, the United States, Israel, and Japan. Apax manages more than $12 billion on behalf of major institutional investors in the United States and abroad. His focus is on U.S. and international opportunities in enterprise and infrastructure software and on Apax portfolio company development.