We are moving into an era of Next Generation Enterprises (NGEs) that utilize the innovative new business models by fully exploiting and integrating the next generation technologies to conduct business. In essence, Internet and associated middleware become the primary source of company business in NGEs (i.e., 80 to 90% of the company business is conducted over networks and other IT infrastructure components). This paper gives a quick overview of NGEs and proposes a conceptual framework for analyzing NGE issues by the NGE Team in Applied Research at Telcordia Technologies. Initial results obtained by applying the framework to analyze IT infrastructure needed to support NGEs and to determine architectural configurations are reviewed. In addition, an NGE prototype and a knowledge-based decision support workbench for NGEs are discussed.