IDG'S Computerworld Launches ROI Supplement, Examining Technology Decisions From a Business Perspective

Veteran business and technology journalist Julia King serves as ComputerworldROI's executive editor and oversees an editorial team largely comprised of outside contributors and freelancers with business journalism expertise, separate from the existing Computerworld editorial staff.

"The stories in ROI focus on the bottom-line value technology brings to businesses and not the technologies themselves," said Julia King, ComputerworldROI executive editor. "A classic ROI story might explore how a company justified a new Internet ordering system, the risks it encountered installing it and its impact on both near-term quarterly earnings and longer-term financial results. What it wouldn't go into are all of the technical specifics of networking protocols and programming code. Business leaders don't need all the `plumbing' details. What they do want and need to know are the financial upsides and downsides and ways to measure them."

With the expectation that existing Computerworld subscribers, an elite group of CIOs and IT executives, will share ComputerworldROI content with their boardroom peers to deepen understanding about technology choices and options, new and existing Computerworld advertisers already have signed on for the supplement. These include ADIC, APC, AT&T Business, Computer Associates, Genuity, Kintana, Semio, St. Bernard Software, Tonic Software, Visual Networks and Windows 2000 Advantage. The debut issue of ComputerworldROI will be distributed at a number of industry trade shows and conferences over the next several months, including Internet World, the Future Forum 2001 on Wireless Technologies, the Internet and eBusiness Conference, Comdex and Storage Networking World, among others.

ComputerworldROI's content includes regular departments, in-depth features and business case studies, with jargon-free, practical examples of how companies are accelerating technology payback. Successes and failures are measured in business terms, such as decreased operating costs or increased inventory turns, rather than technology terms, such as faster data speeds. The premier issue of ComputerworldROI includes stories on how Web-savvy companies are measuring the business value of their Internet investments; how a growing trend of hiring non-technology managers as CIOs is changing the CIO role; why one out of two sales force automation projects fails; and the valuable lessons failed dotcoms have to teach companies launching e-businesses.