Editorial Pointers

Media surveys worldwide tell a similar story: The number of hours people spend in front of their TVs has been heading downward for several years now, sending network executives and advertisers into a spin. Movie studios, lamenting the steep decline in their ticket sales, have been compelled to trim budgets, drop projects, and rethink their modes of distribution. The audience, it’s clear, has moved on, and in most age groups that move is to the Internet where technological advances and unprecedented networking speeds at the residential level now offer a new galaxy of entertainment options for the global audience to enjoy—often interactively and often together.

This month’s special section opens up the world of entertainment networking and the recreational use of IP networks. Broadband access by home-based users has helped produce games and other entertainment options that support a multitude of participants. But there are many challenges to satisfying and building upon these user demands, as the articles in this section explore. Collectively, the authors present the latest in networked entertainment applications as well as identify significant research challenges and opportunities. Guest editors Cormac Sreenan, a former head of the CS department at University College Cork, Ireland, and Kobus van der Merwe, a researcher at AT&T Labs Research, Floral Park, NJ, contend that as access speeds increase and network support for entertainment applications improves, new applications will likely emerge and introduce other challenges for IP network designers. The articles here represent a strong base from which these challenges can be faced.

Also in this issue: Much has been written and debated about the known risks of outsourcing IT projects and how to handle them. Hazel Taylor examines the difficulties of managing unforeseen and intractable risks as viewed from the vendor’s perspective. In addition, Huang et al. trace the Internet routing infrastructure and propose a new platform for protecting it against network attacks. The lines that once separated business and IT professionals have become so intertwined that one prevailing code of ethics should suffice. Payne and Landry propose a uniform code of ethics that reflects the basic values and objectives from both worlds.

In "Viewpoint," Christof Teuscher questions whether the popular theory of inspiring new architectures and systems to follow a biological path is really the way to go. In "The Profession of IT," Peter Denning contends decentralized decision making is key for managing large federated networks. And in "Practical Programmer," Robert Glass comments on complex IT projects as examined in a report issued by the British Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Computer Society.

Diane Crawford
Editor