An interesting survey called the InfoWorld 2008 Top 100 IT Projects has been released. Life goes on, of course, but two of the projects were done by Fannie Mae and Lehman’s. Apparently not wanting any more publicity of any kind, what Fannie Mae’s project accomplished is not even described in the InfoWorld listing.

Confusing to me is that IT projects that become your suppliers' IT products and services that are then used in your IT projects apparently qualified for the honor. In other words, both you and your vendors were eligible to make the list. For example

• Accenture was recognized for a borderless collaborative network. Apparently the guy that picked Louts Notes as the collaborative software of choice for Andersen Consulting 20 years ago has retired; thus ends one of my standing laugh lines when I explain in speeches to young marketing guys why it takes so long to get their “greatest idea since sliced bread” sold into stodgy accounts.
• ADP, now that it no longer needs the guy in the station wagon to deliver real checks, wins because it processes your payroll in only two data centers nationwide instead of one in every major metropolitan area. This is a good idea for you to look at in terms of consolidating your IT budget for 2009.
• In the out-to-pasture category:
  • Borland won for the “agile, waterfall-way (aargh!!—two of my least favorite buzzwords) that the new Borland developed TeamFocus works. Apparently that means Borland did not use the old CodeGear (nee JBuilder and Delphi) on which Borland was based; two great old products out to pasture.
  • GXS is the still living, breathing original 1960s time-sharing service bureau, better known as General Electric Information Services; it won for the way it modernized its aging data centers. I wonder if GXS had any old GE-200 machines still running or if they had been put out to pasture long ago?

• Jaspersoft, the open source business intelligence software provider, partnered with Essentia to develop a community collaboration platform to support the company's growing stable of BI developers and customers. Interestingly, the project was slotted in the Retail category, an interesting statement on where the market is headed
• Tata did the same thing for the same reason as Andersen (I mean Accenture).

“Hear/Hear” and congratulations to “Hire A Hero” where Executive Director Brac Selph led a team that used integrated software from Salesforce.com, Your Membership.com and Xaware to create a services-based Web 2.0 platform for helping returning veterans find work in the United States.