All the singular achievements along the way take on sublime brilliance as part of a greater holistic expression. Alas, except for the occasional tragedy or farce, life doesn't really imitate art.
Perfection does occur, but it is a fleeting and sometimes dangerous illusion.
Even the best-laid plans must leave room for improvisation. None has been able to completely displace custom or in-house developed solutions. Y2K and e-commerce created a sense of urgency about replacing custom code, but the integration layer remains IT's improvisational theater. In 2000, we will see the maturation of products from Active Software, Vitria, NEON, and others, along with new cross-application initiatives from the major providers, such as SAP, Oracle, and Peoplesoft. XML battles will also dominate this year's headlines and create important new options.