New technology wave all about integration. (News and Views).

According to Navigating the Future of Software, Volume 1 of Technology Forecast 2002-2004, published by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the bursting of the speculative technology stock market bubble must not be interpreted as meaning that e-business has disappeared. On the contrary, e-business is just in its infancy. In fact, the slowdown in the economy has not in any way slowed technological development of enterprise and basic software. While the Internet fever has cooled, activity in the information technology sector isn't waning, but instead renewing its focus on producing the tools and infrastructures necessary for the expansion of e-commerce to all facets of economic activity and daily life. That was the message of the latest edition of this publication, published annually since 1988.

"The excitement generated by the dot-coms created strong demand for large-scale electronic business processes, which will govern the development of corporate applications for the future," explains Terry Retter, senior director of the Technology Strategies Group of the Technology Center of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Menlo Park, California, and editorial collaborator on Technology Forecast 2002-2004. "The focus now is on creating advanced software that allows access to information and the exchange of data in a user-friendly and stable way."

The latest edition of Technology Forecast attempts to assess the growing importance of inter-enterprise communications, designed to give organizations the ability to transparently exchange information with their commercial partners. The study also looks at development tends for enterprise applications in a whole host of areas, including analysis, collaboration, mobility, portals, real-time processing and user-friendliness.

"The forecasting horizon of the report suggests that there is a serious need for companies to implement integrated applications, so that they can be interconnected internally and with their commercial partners," commented Ron Schwartz, leader of the Canadian Information Technologies Group of PwC Consulting, the management consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers. "In this context, Web services offer immense growth potential."