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San Diego Convention Center |
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Spring Symposium to Probe
Emerging Technologies
26 March 2004
Business is beginning to emerge from a four-year economic funk. Executives and planners are shifting their focus from expense control and cost management, and are eyeing wholesale growth -- for the first time since the dot.com implosion and the resulting economic doldrums.
"So it's a good time to look at emerging technology and see what's coming," explains Mike Anderson, research conference chairman for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo. As IT budgets win slight increases, CIOs are keen to exploit emerging technology to further their business goals.
That thirst for what's new is the theme for Symposium/ITxpo 2004 in San Diego this week. Gartner clients put that theme at the top of the agenda for what they wanted this week to address.
"We constantly assess what attendees to Symposium want," Anderson says. "We conduct post-event studies, content analysis on the events, take-up of published research, and speaker and presentation evaluations. Attendance at our most forward-thinking sessions also helped to drive this research agenda.
"The message we got at the conclusion of Symposia 2003 was clear and consistent," Anderson adds. "Clients said emerging technology was their most sought-after analytical content from the 2004 Symposium venue."
What's on the Technology Horizon
What clients are saying is this: ?Tell us what's coming in the IT industry. Help me make decisions around vendors and technologies. And guide me in how to exploit technologies to solve my company's business problems.'
This focus on what's new, what's coming and how to integrate it into the business is a theme that Symposium/ITxpo 2004 will present in many of this week's key presentations and research seminars. For example, the theme appealed to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who'll sit for our Mastermind Keynote interview Monday at 11 a.m.
Businesses and organizations today look at technology in two time frames, Anderson says. The first is a view out five to 10 years -- the coming technologies that we should keep our weather eye on. The second time frame brings technology into the practicality of day-to-day business -- with an 18-to-24-month window that would enable CIOs to deploy new technologies in the context of their near-term business needs.
"It's always exciting to see the gadgets and gizmos of what's coming," says analyst Jackie Fenn, who heads Gartner's emerging technologies and trends practice. "But clients want us to go beyond that to show the opportunities that technology will provide for them to do things better."
Technology and Trends Attracting Client Interest
Businesses today, of course, don't react as a monolith to new technology. There's no lock-step embrace of the latest hot hardware or applications. Instead, businesses' interest in new technologies depends on their industry and their "value proposition" -- corporate-speak for their reason for being and how they choose to distinguish themselves from their competitors.
Nonetheless, Fenn notes that there's a lot of activity among Gartner clients in the arena of wireless communications -- the ever-changing array of technologies and devices. There's also interest in radio frequency identification, security technologies, and the next generation of technologies to streamline and enhance customer service via the Internet.
What Will You Take Away From Spring Symposium
Anderson cautions clients not to passively view these emerging technologies and trends as if they were coming attractions for a hyped new movie. Rather, he suggests that you compile from this week's seminars, presentations and one-on-one discussions with analysts three critical "to-do" lists:
- Make a short list of the technologies and trends we present that speak to your company, your industry, and your strengths and weaknesses.
- Identify the challenges that each key technology and trend will impose on your current governance and management strategies. Then you should assess whether today's approaches will be compatible to changing technology and new products tomorrow.
- Seek out the opportunities that new technologies will enable you to link them to investment and growth in your business.
The final take-away of attendees, Anderson emphasizes, should be the awareness that Gartner can provide you with the guidelines, best practices, case studies and hands-on advice to make new technology a potent weapon to your business's growth and success.
Michael Gomez
Gartner Staff
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Listen to the webcasts live or come back and listen to the replays at your convenience.
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9:00AM - 9:15AM PST
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Michael Fleisher
Chairman & CEO,
Gartner
Replay Available
Now
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9:15AM - 10:30AM PST
Tom Austin
Ken McGee
Mark Raskino
Simon Hayward
Andy Kyte
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11:00AM - 12:00PM PST
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William H. Gates
Chairman & Chief
Software Architect,
Microsoft Corp.
Replay Available
Now
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11:00AM - 12:00PM PST
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David W. Dorman
Chairman & CEO,
AT&T Corporation
Replay Available
Now
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11:00AM - 12:00PM PST
Glover Ferguson
Chief Scientist, Accenture
Mario Mazzola
Chief Development Officer,
Cisco Systems
Greg Papadopoulos
Chief Technology Officer,
Sun Microsystems
Replay Available Now
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