February 2006 [Volume 15, Issue 2]

Features

Information sharing speeds healthcare advances

An avian flu pandemic could infect 90 million people in the United States and kill 2 million, according to a study released in December by the Congressional Budget Office. The economic effects could be equally devastating, with a reduction of about $675 billion in the gross domestic product.

Personal: Tools for the world-weary knowledge worker

Service-oriented architecture: a way of life

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) mirrors the goals of knowledge management in synthesizing information from disparate sources into a meaningful view.

SOA Solutions: IONA Technologies

SOA Solutions: KANA

SOA tools--virtually bridging the legacy divide Part I

An SOA is a complicated, usually multiyear undertaking, so the tools required can be various indeed. Here’s a sampling of the kind of activities SOA tools need to address as well as general explanations of tool types.

Understanding open source Part 1

Actual opinions vary on exactly what open source means, and how broad a category it defines. At its most basic, the definition is simple: It's software for which the source code is publicly available, free of charge.

News Analysis

A business plan for disaster

As a result of the three-day New York City transit strike in December, the millions of commuters who regularly travel into Manhattan or throughout the five boroughs had to find an alternate means of transportation or an alternate workplace.

CM: reaching the next level

In spite of the ongoing efforts of vendors and user organizations, the management of non-structured data (content) continues to be a problem, with significant impact.

Storage and ECM

David Weinberger

Was there always information?

"There's always been information," said a member of an information architects mailing list I audit. I think that's probably not true, and it has implications for what we think our businesses are made out of.