IT Organizations Must Reinvent Themselves to Provide Rapid Results

ORLANDO, Fla., October 18, 2005 - IT managers must provide rapid results, or business leaders will not view IT as being strategic, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner analysts examined how IT managers can implement initiatives to achieve faster return on investment (ROI) at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here October 17 through 21.

For IT managers to successfully provide rapid results, they must achieve three basic objectives: Eliminate, Consolidate and Focus.

"Deliver rapid results by eliminating clutter," said Andy Kyte, research vice president and Gartner Fellow. "Consolidate and simplify your infrastructure and applications, and focus on the one project that can make a real difference to the business. That will make business leaders sit up, take notice and understand that IT really is delivering value."

Gartner analysts said it will take strong drive and energy from IT management to refocus the IT organization and do new things. What IT delivers in the future will be tangibly different than what was delivered in the past. There have been trillions of dollars spent on computer systems over the last 35 years that have significantly improved the productivity of administrative processes. This is important and necessary, but no longer sufficient.

"In order to energize IT management to deal with the new challenges to deliver rapid results, it needs a vision that says, 'We are going to be delivering a different type of information technology in the future which is about supporting the decision makers in the organization with non-routine, cognitive work," Mr. Kyte said. "IT professionals that remain fixated on the data and transaction paradigm will be relegated to a minor role in business support."

The IT industry is no longer arranged into specific categories. IT is being redefined to a level that has not been seen before.

"The IT industry is being completely redefined by concepts and technologies such as virtualization, wireless technologies, consumer technologies that impact on IT, and ubiquitous access to information," said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and head of research at Gartner.

These technologies are resulting in four major changes to the IT industry:

• Consolidation and New Vendors. There will be continued consolidation creating super ecosystem vendors while equally resulting in a mushrooming of small, nimble non-conformist vendors. The location of these vendors will not be in existing centers of excellence, such as Silicon Valley. Competition and innovation will come from places such as South Eastern Asia and India.
• Non-Linear Acquisitions. There will be a rise in non-linear acquisitions such as eBay's purchase of Skype. The consolidation will not only occur as a concentration within market segments of the IT industry, but increasingly "cross-border" between segments of IT, with a strong impact from consumer-based technologies.
• Shift from Real-Time to "Sensing or Responding". It will no longer be enough to have real-time environments. IT leaders must build systems that sense and respond before events happen.
• Dominance of "Services Everywhere". Services will wrap around and define not just software, but all aspects of IT and telecommunications. Any vendor will be judged on how it supports a services concept and how it financially manages the impact on margins by delivering services.

The near term results of this will be the assumption that businesses in 2006 are in the midst of implementing or considering:

• Virtual hardware and software technologies
• Service orientated architecture (SOA) - software as service
• Location aware technologies
• Instant messaging
• Enterprise information management tools
• Business process focused software

Mr. Sondergaard concluded, "All these technologies must be part of your technology platform to deliver rapid results."

A replay of this keynote will be available on Gartner's Web site on Tuesday, October 18 at www.gartner.com/symposium/us.

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the IT industry's largest and most strategic conference, providing business leaders with a look at the future of IT. For more than 10,000 IT professionals from the world's leading enterprises, Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of their annual planning efforts. Attendees rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use technology to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency.

In Orlando, an integral part of the Gartner Symposium is the ITxpo showfloor, where more than 190 technology companies are showcasing the latest technology solutions. There are 11 ITxpo marketplaces, including mobile and wireless, business intelligence and data warehousing, outsourcing and IT services and security. ITxpo marketplaces are focused areas designed to aggregate solution providers into a specific market and link conference topics to market solutions. Attendees can attend technology company presentations and schedule face to face meetings with exhibitors of their choice.

CONTACT:
Christy Pettey
Gartner
(408) 468-8312
christy.pettey@gartner.com