Maryfran Johnson

If you take a big swig of vendor Kool-Aid from IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Sun Microsystems Inc. or Oracle Corp. these days, it'll taste a whole lot like grid computing.

Perhaps the meek really will inherit the earth, but the optimists are the ones who'll know how to enjoy it. Or maybe I should say the planners

Perhaps the meek really will inherit the earth, but the optimists are the ones who'll know how to enjoy it. Or maybe I should say the planners

There was a time in the late 1990s when the common workplace refrain was,

Gerry Cohen has been CEO of New York-based Information Builders Inc. for the past 27 years. Once a developer of fourth-generation languages for mainframes, Information Builders now focuses on Web-based information delivery products, data analysis software and integration tools, the latter through its iWay Software subsidiary. Recently, Cohen spoke with Computerworld about his company and new technologies such as Web services.

Being something of a geek groupie, I've always taken a fairly benevolent view of IT geekspeak.

The rhetoric around the "real-time enterprise" continues to rise, but perhaps for a very good reason. It's a golden opportunity for IT to once again show its true power. Is there a company anywhere that doesn't want an instant 360-degree view of its customers? Is there a business left standing that isn't leveraging IT right now to enhance the bottom line and whomp competitors?

Leadership is one of those words that carry a lot of weight but can have surprisingly little substance. True leadership is like great art, readily recognized but not easily duplicated.