A community desire for research which might be commercialised is not, of course, restricted to the IS domain—we see similar needs in medicine and engineering, for example. Information Systems is, however, uniquely placed in the following combination of respects: • Low level of development of fundamental theoretic advances • Rapid rate of change of the enabling technology • High relative contribution of the commercial sector to innovations which are similar to those sourced from academe • Rapidly increasing pervasion of Information Technology (and the consequent pervasion of IS need) within Commerce, Government and Society generally • High visibility