Late last year, Howard Schmidt, Microsoft Corp.'s director of security, quietly wrestled the software vendor's physical and IT security functions into one burgeoning unit that's now dubbed the information assurance program.
Organizations that depend on IT need good technology management. That's obvious. What is not as obvious (except to good technology managers) is that good technology management is never enough. Unless you've got executives who understand the strategic challenges and opportunities of this technology and how to leverage it to meet their business objectives, your organization will always take a back seat to those organizations whose management actively accept as their responsibility the task of creating new business value from IT.