Recently there has been many discussions in the media about Web 2.0 yet, with the exception of a handfull of project management tools, there aren't many browser based and feature rich tools for the business analyst or systems analyst.

Recently I discovered Gliffy, a browser-based tool for creating diagrams.

You can check it out at:

www.gliffy.com

Craig,

You are correct; Gliffy is a bit clunky and is missing many features that currently exist in a tool such as Visio.  I'm hoping the guys at Gliffy continue to improve the tool (they do have a long list of feature requests).  As far as having to work on-line, I don't see that as a big problem as these days, when I get on the computer I'm online 95% of the time.  The airplane is probably the only time when I'm on a computer and not connected to the internet. 

But let's take a look at some advantages a Gliffy (and hopefully of other such tools):

·  It's free for personal use

·  It's free for open sources projects

·  Cost of corporate or enterprise licensing is far less than Visio

·  Ability to work on your diagrams from any computer connected to the internet (not just the one which has Visio installed)

·  Collaboration features over the internet

·  Direct links to publish your diagrams on the web

·  etc.

I will be the first to admit that I'm still using Visio but it's nice to see tools such as Gliffy pop-up and to imagine how these may help the business systems analyst of the future.

- Adrian