When it comes to custom Web applications most companies are struggling to manage releases, ad hoc fixes, and global distribution in the time required to be competitive online, especially as rapidly shifting customer expectations and increased pressure to speed time-to-Web place a greater burden on IT.

The finding came from a global survey of IT professionals undertaken for Interwoven to determine how the professionals are coping with the growing development of composite or custom Web applications to drive their online business. Interwoven conducted the survey in order to find out how IT's "unsung heroes" are managing the increasing volume of change requests to custom Web applications.

According to the research:

• Custom Web application growth shows no sign of slowing:
• The vast majority (77 per cent) of development efforts are focused on custom Web applications
• More than half of respondents will at least double the number of custom Web applications in the next year
• Most companies depend on "push and pray" processes -- 70 per cent are doing this manually via FTP, build scripts, mailing CDs, or by copying files
• Time-to-Web lags far behind market expectations
• More than half said that it takes two or more days per release
• 73 per cent can only do one to two releases per month
• 54 per cent said they do up to 10 hot fixes a month

"This survey truly reflects what we've been hearing from customers for years. Huge amounts of resources are pumped into the development of exciting, progressive Web applications, and yet the IT department is like the cobbler's children, having to provision these major releases and updates using duct tape and sheer ingenuity," said Heidi Lorenzen, vice president of corporate and international marketing, at Interwoven.

Len Rust is publisher of The Rust Report.