Lafe Low

Even as the economic malaise that has gripped the business world for the past two years shows signs of easing, value leads the discussion when the topic is IT investments.

Bad guys had better think twice before driving through Miami-Dade County. Police officers there will soon have a powerful weapon in their arsenal with which to identify fugitives. A Web services initiative will provide Miami-Dade officers immediate access to the county's criminal database as well as to those administered by the state and the FBI.

A sobering thought: Of the 362 graduates in the class of 2002 at MIT's Sloan School of Management, about three-quarters

It's a theorem from dot-com history: That which a retailer spins off must eventually return to the parent company or crumble from its own lack of success. That was one of Marco Iansiti's principal findings when he studied 30 U.S. brick-and-mortar retailers that launched online ventures.