What do Corporate Governance and XML have in common? I believe they are the two primary drivers of change in IT over the next five years.

XML is undoubtedly the technology that underpins the future (or even the present) of IT with all of web services and SOA built on top of it.

Corporate Governance at the most general level requires that management is in control of everything that happens in their organisation. For this to occur, management must define the rules that govern the organisation, and then be able to show that the organisation is complying with the rules.

IT systems are now a fully integrated part of the organisation. Therefore management must be able to see that the IT systems implement the rules and the systems must also provide audit trails to show that the rules have been complied with.