I am a strong proponent of decentralization. I think of centralized anythingservers, power stations, data, manufacturing facilitiesas putting all your eggs in one basket. Disaster planners can appreciate this; if something goes wrong with your central thing, you can lose everything; think of Pearl Harbor.A lack of centralization works. It smoothes workflow, spreads the workload, and provides built-in redundancy. Decentralization is key to the Internets survivability, and key to building a stable and safe infrastructure.Some examples of centralized things are most states departments of motor vehicles and the Soviet agricultural system. Long lines, poor products, and bad jokes are the result.

The Center Cannot HoldIn an information-focused business, having too much in one place is an invitation to disaster, and its why the mainframe is, in the long run, doomed. Distributed data models and off-site backup will certainly extend its life, but in the end it is not as fault tolerant as it needs to be.Yes, mainframes are still useful, powerful, and, for the moment, essential for many businesses. But long-term thinkers are beginning to see the end of big iron; it may be the beginning of the end or the end of the beginningeither way, the clock is ticking.Still, mainframes and mainframe thinking are well embedded in the insurance industry, and leaving them is far from easy. In December, our cover story went over options for keeping your big iron alive and useful. This month, though, well look at the issue from a different angle: how to make the transition from those machines toward a more decentralized environment. In other words, how to dump your mainframes.With the economic downturn were in, you may not be thinking of the investment required to make the transition to a new platform. But, to quote Yoda, You will be. You will be.

The Best Lack All Convictions, While the Worst Are Full of Passionate IntensityUnfortunately, one of the things you may be thinking about is your staffspecifically, downsizing it. (Some firms call it rightsizing, a term I detest. That implies that the staff was the wrong size in the first place.) Who should you keep? Who should go first? Hard questions, but one we nevertheless posed to insurer CIOs across the country. Check out Burning Down the House on page 18.Finally, with ACORD and the industrys trade show season almost upon us, we take our annual look at standards for insurance technology. This year we asked carriers a simple question: How important are standards, really? Their answers begin on page 22.Finally, if you havent signed up for our new electronic mailing list, whats the holdup? Go to www.technologydecisions.com and click on e-News Update. In print, in person, and online, well be seeing you.