Survivor's Guide to 2006: Anchors Aweigh!

To help you navigate these turbulent waters, we've re-evaluated our core technology coverage areas, as we do at this time every year, and realigned them with IT trends and job functions. If you're involved in database management, XML or application integration, for instance, look to our new Application Infrastructure core area. Coverage of the applications themselves--ERP, CRM and BPM--now falls into the slightly revised Business Applications bucket we now call Enterprise Applications. (We've combined the two areas here for easy reference.) We'll cover everything from e-mail to podcasting in Messaging & Collaboration, an area we've broken out from Business Applications. Network Infrastructure (formerly just Infrastructure) includes all the underpinnings of the network itself--not just routers and switches, but also load balancers, caching devices and application accelerators. It's steady as she goes with our Security, Network & Systems Management, Wireless and Storage & Servers coverage.

Here, in our sixth Survivor's Guide, our writers--all hands-on experts in their respective fields--share insights based on a year's worth of market analysis and product testing in our Real-World Labs®. We tell you what's hot and what's not, what companies to keep a particularly close eye on, and we check ourselves on the predictions we made at this time last year.

You'll find more technology survival tools here, including the launch of our TechLeader TV series. And come January, we'll launch a wholly reorganized and redesigned site with "channels" that reflect our new technology categories, as well as additional content to support you on the job.

Anchors aweigh!Mike Lee, [email protected]