Looking past the year 2000. (information technology management)(Cover Story)

There'll be no time to pause for breath after December 31, 1999. Even as the year 2000 priorities may be consuming your attention, here are some other technology management issues to think about for the rest of this millennium and into the next one as well.

For many organizations today, compliance of systems with the year 2000 is the only information technology strategy that is important. This is understandable, especially if there are thousands of lines of ancient programming code that represent a threat to the enterprise and its customers. But the pace of technological change is relentless and there will be no time to pause for breath after December 31, 1999. Even if priorities do not permit you to engage in a major planning exercise, here are three important information technology (IT) management issues to think about.

IT issue 1 - World Wide Web

Because of all the hype - maybe even more than for the year 2000 - there is a tendency to dismiss the World Wide Web as somewhat of a fad - a cultural phenomenon to be sure, but not that important to business. In fact, the Web is truly innovative in the way it has married two older technologies (the Internet and the graphical user interface) to dramatically extend the reach of technology. This is something that initiatives such as videotext (does anyone remember Telidon?) were never able to do. It may even have finally answered that proverbial question, "What would I do with a home computer?"

Our company recently became a Web shopper. I don't mean that we visited a virtual mall or ordered from an on-line catalogue merchant. Catalogue shopping and trips to malls are recreational experiences for many people and the enjoyment is often independent of whether any purchase is made. I don't think that the true impact of the Web lies in any potential it may have to substitute for this type of "real world" physical experience. What I mean is that we actually used the Web to find, test and complete the transaction for a piece of software, all without …