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On the hot seat
April 26, 2006
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewd by John Gallant for Network World's Hot Seat series. Here's the video.
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Comments
I saw it earlier in week. You were remarkably genial - like your sarcasm better!
Two reactions
a) You talks about "strategy" and IT's role in it. Most of my CIO interaction shows a more recent focus on more tactical process innovation, not grandiose "strategy". The kind I have cataloged at Steelcase, Jetblue and others on my other blog
b) You continue to be a bit too optimistic about Utility Computing. My issue as I commented before is less to do with buyer willingess, but with IT vendor willingness to pass along economies of scale to buyers. EDS has over 100,000 employees. The average Fortune 500 CIO has 500 IT employees. Infosys has delivered over 18,000 projects using its Global Delivery Model. The average CIO has done fewer than 10. Microsoft spent $ 6 billion in R&D last year. The average Fortune 500 CIO's total IT budget (not just on software) is less than $ 50 m. Yet vendors cannot price their products or deliver performance on a utility scale model? How much more scale do they need? for many vendors experience/scale is an opportunity to charge a premium, not pass along savings from repetition/size.
Posted by: vinnie mirchandani ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.roughtype.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 26, 2006 11:10 AM
Vinnie,
You talk about "strategy" and IT's role in it. Most of my CIO interaction shows a more recent focus on more tactical process innovation, not grandiose "strategy".
That's because, having examined IT's strategic role, CIOs and their masters have come to accept my point of view: IT has little strategic power anymore, and so it's best to focus on tactical applications that support the true competitive advantages that lie elsewhere in your business.
:-)
Still, though, you have to take a strategic view to understand where the most powerful tactical applications lie.
Posted by: Nick Carr at April 26, 2006 11:43 AM
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