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• Daily Edge

  Keep up-to-date with the best interviews, opinions and expert commentary from IT Business Edge's editors and industry leaders, delivered daily to your inbox.
• CTO Edge Update

  All too frequently, the business value of new technologies is lost in the jargon that surrounds every innovation. Find out how to discover the real business benefits to be derived from the latest in innovative information technology.
• Business Tools & Templates

  IT professionals are sharing their best templates, policies, planning documents and other tools every day in the Knowledge Network. Stay abreast of the collaborative opportunities and expertise from your professional community.
• Aligning IT & Business Goals

  The yearly IT budget exercise is not nearly enough to keep up with the speed of change, and long-term IT projects may become irrelevant even if they meet specifications and are finished on time. Keep in touch with your company's long-term goals to keep your team's work relevant.
• Maximizing IT Investments

  Companies that get the most out of their IT investments generally follow the five basic steps of value capture. The steps are simple and logical, but too often IT and business executives skip one or more steps and therefore fail to realize value from IT implementations.
• Managing Compliance Standards

  Compliance efforts must go beyond legislative imperatives such as SARBOX and HIPAA to expose vital internal data not only to auditors but also to internal decision makers. It requires more than just a new software package; IT leaders must re-evaluate how information flows through the enterprise.
• Integrating the Enterprise

  Successful e-business goes much deeper than validating online credit-card orders. From advanced customer pattern analysis to real-time inventory management with trusted vendors, two-way data flow is the key to cutting waste and optimizing profits.
• Optimizing Infrastructure

  Stretching hardware dollars and cutting support costs has emerged as a key factor in managing tight IT budgets. Open-source platform solutions, smart leasing plans, and the emergence of task-defined "thin" machines are just a few frugal tactics worth watching.
• Fortifying Network Security

  As you make data more readily available to your users, you also open the door to hackers and other threats. Security doesn't end with VPN and encryption--you must anticipate new technological threats and manage against the ever-present danger of careless users.
• Voice & Data Convergence

  Voice over the data network was once viewed simply as a way to cut long distance bills. But as VoIP and new presence-aware technologies mature and gain traction in the marketplace, the real benefits of information-rich customer-facing applications -- along with the security concerns that come with all those info packets on one network -- are hitting home for the enterprise.
• Leveraging Enterprise Software

  Enterprise IT manages a delicate balance between maintaining the powerful, usually expensive applications that capture, organize and model business data across a large organization and consistently adding value with innovative technology. And from ERP to supply chain management, vendor management plays a key role.