If your first guess was increased government pressure on businesses to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, you're right – it cost companies an estimated $6 billion dollars this year alone to implement compliancy.

There has been a lot of discussion on the changes introduced with ITIL V3. ITpreneurs gives you the latest on the new direction which the emerging ITIL V3 Qualification Scheme is taking.

Beginning of 2005, EXIN launched the first clustered practitioner course: Release and Control. This clustered practitioner course replaces the independent practitioner courses: Change/Release Management and Configuration Management.

In August of this year, 2005, EXIN has opened up their third regional office in the world. After the opening regional offices in Kuala Lumpur and Boston, the third office is now located in Tokyo, Japan. The opening of an office in Japan is a confirmation from EXIN that the Japanese adoption of ITIL is steadily growing.

The itSMF has launched an official certification scheme for BS15000 trainings. Within this structure Accredited Course providers can deliver trainings leading to BS15000 certificates.

COBIT has been selected by the Commission of the European Communities (EC) as one of the three internationally accepted standards to be used to provide information security and control over its agricultural paying agencies.

Computer Emergency Response Team, India (CERT-In) has taken an unprecedented move in the wake of the need to integrate into the global effort to meet the IT Security Standards and Implementation. CERT-In has mandated the annual audit of IT systems and network for all government and “critical infrastructure” organizations - both public and private.