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8 - 10 April 2002
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Florence, Italy
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Opening Keynote Presentation from Symposium/ITxpo
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Peter Sondergaard, Head of Research EMEA | | |
Monday 8 April 2002
A battle between "suits" and "geeks" was the theme of the opening presentation at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Florence today. Suit, Peter Sondergaard, head of research EMEA, and geek, Steve Prentice, director of research, told more than a thousand attendees that they had each other to blame for the "mess" in which enterprises currently find them-selves - a mess characterized by the dotcom boom and bust, e-business hype and collapse, multinational businesses in ruins and out-of-sight licensing costs.
Sondergaard threw the first punch, saying that business leaders laid some of the blame squarely at the feet of geeks: technology is to blame for long term and expensive projects, wasted resources and stockpiled infrastructure plaguing many companies. "So what have the "techies" got to say for themselves?" Sondergaard then asked.
Prentice counterpunched that geeks cannot help it if the suits in business deployed the wrong technologies and did not understand what they were doing or how to use it. "They didn't know what they wanted and when they finally decided what to do, poor project management and usage killed the benefits of application - that's not our fault."
Humour aside, it is debate that reflects the current business climate for chief information officers (CIOs) only too well. To survive in this environment, CIOs were told to find aggressive ways to cut cost, but to keep alive short-term projects that could deliver real benefits to the business.
As for recovery, Prentice said IT would follow the pattern set by the economy, not lead it. "Take advantage of this "gap year" to tidy up existing projects and position for growth," he said. The IT Spending Survey of 1500 Gartner EXP CIO members showed that the bottom of this slow growth had been hit and a better future was just around the corner. "But don't expect a return to boom years. It will be a slow climb to full recovery."
By the end of their debate, Prentice and Sondergaard agreed that the only certainty for the future is uncertainty. "It's hard to tell," said Sondergaard. "There is no next big thing on the horizon, just a group of technologies that have yet to succeed or fail." All the more important to watch them closely, added Prentice, because anything can happen.
By Andrew Spender, Gartner
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