Setting Our New Course

Thanks to database success, business, IT, and Database P&D can aim higher

Database: For most organizations today, it is practically in a pantheon with Mom and apple pie. Despite a relatively brief history, databases are now indispensable to the growth and development of a modern business, an effective government agency, a winning political campaign, a local charity, and on and on. The software, hardware, and technical skills required to design, program, and manage databases have come together in the last 20 to 25 years--with most of the development occurring over just the last 10.

Database Programming & Design's history parallels the explosion of the database industry. We began publishing in November 1987. Our reason for being was to capture the energy, excitement, and challenge of building and managing the data-driven organization. Our mission: to provide informative coverage to help you design, develop, and manage data resources--and deliver the data-driven promise to your organization. When we began publishing, the database industry was young; most organizations were just becoming familiar with the relational model, normalization, and other key concepts in building a database. Today's major DBMS vendors were just beginning to release serious versions of their products.

It's been a roller-coaster ride over the past 11 years. It certainly has never lacked interest and even amusement. We've seen some great products and great characters; we've also seen a lot of hype and difficult tests of character. With Database Programming & Design, we have tried to balance our coverage between the here and now--with implementation techniques you could use right away--and the future. Articles in our pages introduced client/server computing, data warehousing, business rules, metadata repositories, and object/relational database--all with a nod toward their practical application.

Although no mean feat in itself, the payoff of a database goes beyond having a dependable repository of data. A database system takes in data as its raw material and produces a more refined product: information. Seeking an even greater competitive edge, greater efficiency, or an ability to identify new opportunities, businesses must process information into an even more refined product: intelligence. In a complex organization, this new goal is within reach when the knowledge gained from information is available to the right people, at the right time, and in the right place. Then, advanced software, collaborative teamwork, and business knowledge will, we hope, create intelligence. And with intelligence, organizations can anticipate change, adjust to new market forces, and capture unforeseen opportunities.

From data, to information, to knowledge and intelligence: It is an exciting evolution that requires a stronger unity between business and IT, and between data- and process-oriented methodologies for building applications. It is also the basis for some big changes we are making with Database Programming & Design and its sister Miller Freeman Inc. publication, DBMS. Next month's October issue will be the final print edition of Database Programming & Design; we will then merge with DBMS to produce a new magazine called Intelligent Enterprise.

In the way that "database" embodied a primary business and IT goal over the past ten years, we feel that the "intelligent enterprise" is a good name for what organizations would like to become over next ten years. Businesses want to employ information technology as a means to an end, not as an end in itself; and yet to achieve their desired goals, businesses know that they will need the best that IT has to offer. They will need an infrastructure that can deliver integrated applications--both homegrown and "packaged" enterprise resource planning systems. They will need OLTP systems that can handle electronic commerce. They will need well-designed decision support, business intelligence, and data warehouse systems. And they will need distributed architectures to take full advantage of mobile and Web-based computing.

Intelligent Enterprise will bring you experience and analysis written by the best contributors to our current magazines, and then some. We will come out of the box with an exciting array of columns, feature articles, product reviews, and news analysis. We will tune our coverage to the needs of our primary audience: IT managers and chief architects of business-critical applications and database systems. However, you will see us mix in a richer blend of business vision to help you link IT efforts more closely with business objectives.

As a cornerstone of the intelligent enterprise, database systems will continue to be a big part of our field of vision. But to satisfy the specific needs of database designers and administrators, we plan to continue Database Programming & Design as a special online publication. We will have more to say about www.dbpd.com next month. Until then, we welcome your comments and suggestions about our new direction!