1. Firstly, a bit about you

1.1 Approximately how large is your organisation (worldwide) in terms of employees?

1.2 Which part of the world are you based in?

1.3 What sector does your organisation operate in?

2. Background questions

2.1 Which of the following best describes your role (please tick the first that applies)?

2.2 Which of the following activities do you keep in house, or source externally?

2.3 How do development teams and operational teams interact? (tick one)

2.4 How are IT facilities distributed across the organisation? (tick one)

3. The Platform Perspective

Modern applications are generally dependent on a number of underlying technologies, such as application servers, web servers, transaction engines, database management systems, and so on. Some vendors are beginning to talk about the concept of an "application platform", by which they mean defining a collection of integrated capabilities that work together to provide all of the foundation services an application might need in a single stack or 'platform'. Such a platform might be delivered as an integrated suite by single vendor, or defined/assembled by you from independent components based on your requirements, skill sets, and so on. With this in mind...

3.1 Does the concept of an application platform make sense to you in general?

3.2 How do you see the following capabilities fitting into the application platform concept?

3.3 Has your organisation actually adopted the concept of an application platform?

We would be grateful if you could answer the following drill down questions on application platforms in this section…

... however if you would rather skip these click here

3.4 Thinking of the components that underpin your applications, would you regard any of the following vendors as a 'standard' for your organisation from an application platform perspective?

3.5 How influential do you think the following roles in your organisation might be in how an application platform is introduced?

3.6 What are the main benefits of a more consistent approach to application platforming?

3.7 And what do you see as the most significant challenges to moving forwards with a more consistent application platform approach?

3.8 Do you see a role for any of the following 'cloud computing' options in relation to application platforming and delivery?

3.9 To what degree do you see cloud computing options being adopted by your organisation?

3.10 Thinking about how vendors describe their application platform solutions, how helpful would you say the following phrases are in enabling you to understand the application platform approach and its benefit? (where 1 = totally unhelpful, 5 = pretty much nails it)

3.11 How would you sum up the point of application platforms (or lack of point, as the case may be)?

OK, thanks for your input on the applications platform questions.

There are a couple of other areas you can give us your views and opinions on. The first, building on the platform discussion, is to pick up on the operational view of IT. We then have a few interesting questions on dealing with that complicating factor of the end user and their impact on the whole discussion of platforms and operations. You can participate as much as you want, so your choices now are as follows:

• Proceed to questions on Operational View
• Skip to the user impact questions
• Take me to the closing questions

4. The Operational View

4.1 In operational terms, how would you describe your organisation's approach to IT service delivery? (check one)

4.2 Which of the following are seen as the main challenges concerning the operational delivery of IT? (tick all that apply)

4.3 Do you see any of the following having a significant positive impact on IT operations? (tick all that apply)

4.4 Of these, which are you taking advantage of now or are you likely to take on board over the coming 12 months?

4.5 What do you see as the main drivers for adopting virtualisation technologies, now and in the future?

4.6 Other than the stuff already mentioned, what is the single biggest thing that you would change in your organisation to improve IT operational performance?

Thank you for that, now do you want to:

• Proceed to the user impact questions
• Take me to the closing questions

5. The Impact of the User

5.1 Which of the following are significantly driving user requirements or expectations in your organisation? (tick all that apply)

5.2 How much are business users adopting technology solutions independently of the IT department or customising/extending what IT has provided? (tick all that apply, could be multiple ticks per row)

5.3 From an applications support and user empowerment perspective, how important are the following to users, and how is this reflected in support by the IT department?

5.4 What are your general views on users or user departments dealing with their own IT related requirements in these kinds of ways?

6. Closing questions

6.1 Looking across IT and operations as a whole, which of the following would you regard as particular priorities for your organisation?

6.2 Which of the following activities or initiatives are you investing in?

6.3 For each, would you agree with the following statements? (check if yes)

6.4 On a scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 is not very well and 5 is very well indeed) how well would you say your organisation delivers IT services with respect to:

6.5 What best describes how information technology is thought of within the organisation? (check one)

7. Free prize draw

Let us know your email address to be entered into a free prize draw

Thank you!