Vortex 2005: Debate swirls around getting an edge from IT

SAN FRANCISCO - IT does matter - and it matters in a big way.

That was one of the main themes that emerged from Vortex 2005, a two-day smorgasbord that included a spirited CIO debate on utility computing, provocative presentations by industry thought leaders and insightful discussions on the future of IT from the perspective of investors, vendors, observers and practitioners. And all without PowerPoint.

Nicholas Carr wasn't in the conference room at the Palace Hotel, but his presence was felt nevertheless. Author Geoffrey Moore, co-executive producer of Vortex, opened the show by rebutting Carr's assertion that IT doesn't matter. Moore said IT can play a vital role in the success of any business by helping the company reestablish differentiation.

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SAN FRANCISCO - IT does matter - and it matters in a big way.

That was one of the main themes that emerged from Vortex 2005, a two-day smorgasbord that included a spirited CIO debate on utility computing, provocative presentations by industry thought leaders and insightful discussions on the future of IT from the perspective of investors, vendors, observers and practitioners. And all without PowerPoint.

Nicholas Carr wasn't in the conference room at the Palace Hotel, but his presence was felt nevertheless. Author Geoffrey Moore, co-executive producer of Vortex, opened the show by rebutting Carr's assertion that IT doesn't matter. Moore said IT can play a vital role in the success of any business by helping the company reestablish differentiation.

The key is to automate or outsource IT functions that aren't core to the business in order to free up IT talent to innovate in areas where the company can gain a competitive advantage, Moore said.

For example, David Watson, CTO at Kaiser Permanente, said one of his goals is to use data mining to give Kaiser an edge when it comes to patient care. Another big IT group, Fidelity Investments, is using technology to move more financial tools and services to the Web, and to improve customer satisfaction when it comes to voice calls.

Ed Kamins, CIO of Avnet, said his philosophy is to figure out what's important to the business and then determine a way to do it better. He revamped the company's request-for-quotes system and has launched an effort to offer IT services for a fee to certain customers.

One of the highlights of Vortex was a dinner discussion sparked by a survey of how Vortex attendees see the future.

For example, 63% of respondents said it's very likely that services-oriented architectures will be the dominant computing model by 2015, but only 35% thought that outsourced utility computing will be the dominant model by then.

On other topics, 78% said it's very likely that U.S. homes will have access to 20M bit/sec broadband by 2015, while only 15% believe it's likely that vendors will solve our security problems by 2010.

Google was a major topic of conversation. Industry veteran Mitchell Kertzman, now a partner at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, pointed out that the smartest young people are now flocking to Google the way they used to flock to Microsoft. But the consensus among attendees at Vortex was that Google will remain primarily a consumer-oriented business and will not try to challenge Microsoft in the enterprise. Still, 18% of survey respondents thought Google would own the desktop by 2010.

Utility computing is another area that provoked quite a bit of discussion, especially in the light of Carr's latest argument that utility computing - computing provided by a service provider - means the end of the corporate IT department. In a debate format, Ryan Granard, CIO at Dolphin Search, took the pro-utility computing side, while Hasbro CIO Douglas Schwinn argued against it.

Schwinn disagreed with Carr's premise that IT doesn't matter. He said IT matters because it is inherently strategic; it creates business opportunities. He said outsourcing the entire computing function is a bad idea, because it goes against the notion of IT and the business working together to improve business processes.