Mobile roll-out for Life Technologies

Even before his company had finished developing its first mobile business intelligence application, Manoj Prasad was deep into planning the next one, reveals Computerworld.

"We could immediately see [that mobile] would be big for us," says Prasad, vice president of enterprise architecture, global applications and testing at Life Technologies. In fact, Prasad made mobile BI a 2010 strategic priority for his department.

His goal was to roll out mobile applications that would allow the 800-person sales force in the field to dive deeply into data about the cutting-edge tools Life Technologies develops and sells to scientific researchers.

Enterprise architecture bridges the gap between IT and the rest of the business, according to industry analyst Gartner, reports Zycko.

In its Enterprise Architecture Hype Cycle, the research firm looks at the issues affecting the uptake and perception of EA in a changing corporate climate.

Philip Allega, research vice-president at Gartner, says: "The artificial walls between business and IT are crashing down and EA is the bridge to integrate business and IT."

The US Government Accountability Office released a major revision to its framework for assessing the maturity of agency enterprise architectures, states Fierce Government IT.

Enterprise architecture tends to suffer from a tendency toward esoteric jargon and has a reputation for being a headquarters chief information officer budget enforcement tool, according to the accountability office.

Nonetheless, when utilised correctly, it can make organisations considerably more effective, writes Randy Hite, GAO director for information technology architecture and systems issues in the preface to the new maturity assessment framework.