InformationWeek

In the Internet economy, companies expect more from these vendors than ever before. They want to acquire end-to-end views of their back-end systems all the way up to their Web storefronts. They want to better manage and secure their E-business processes. And they want to ensure the performance of applications delivered over the Internet. The more forward-looking companies are even beginning to seek out tools that can help track usage of handhelds suddenly being put to work for real enterprise applications.

All in all, a tall order. And while each of the major players has its strengths in these areas, no one has yet demonstrated that it owns the perfect combination of features and functions to meet the real-world demands of business in this new age.

At the same time, companies are beginning to look at new ways to deliver systems-and network-management functions. Indeed, analysts say the real growth opportunities lie in the largely untapped service and infrastructure provider market. "We see the consumer of the management technology actually being the service provider more and more," says Tivoli senior VP David Murphy. Not surprisingly, many of the systems-and network-management vendors are planning new initiatives to cater to this market. CA, for example, has partnered with service providers around the globe to deliver its Unicenter TNG management software and eTrust security software over the Internet on a subscription basis.

May you live in interesting times, says an old proverb. It seems the vendors profiled here are doing just that.