VideoBecause information technology exerts such a strong influence at companies of all sizes around the globe, and because it continues to evolve rapidly on many different fronts, it merits a closer look. On the following pages we offer snapshots of the 20 people, technologies, and trends that have had a major impact on the IT world in the past year, and that seem likely to remain dominant forces in the months ahead. Many affect finance directly, and they all promise (or continue) to reshape business in ways none of us can fully imagine.
#1 Adaptive Systems
Most people are familiar with efforts to model computers after the human brain, but recently researchers have turned their attention to the human body as analogue. If computers had something akin to an immune system, an ability to "heal" themselves without human intervention, that would go a long way toward alleviating the problems posed by increasingly complex systems. IBM, the Department of Defense, and other research centers have already begun to build some self-healing properties into software. Experts say rudimentary forms of adaptive systems will come to market in the next 1 to 3 years, but a world in which the entire IT department is a machine that would go of itself is 10 to 20 years away.
#2 Jeff Bezos
President, Amazon.com
While it would be an overstatement to claim that as Amazon.com goes, so goes E-commerce, it wouldn't be much of one. Jeff Bezos and company not only popularized the online hawking of books, CDs, and pretty much anything else that will fit in a UPS truck, they also made pro forma accounting seem almost de rigueur. Almost. The company's most recent quarterly results put it back in the red after it posted its first-ever profit — using GAAP, no less — in Q4 2001, as post-holiday volumes dropped. That did not come as a surprise, and in fact Amazon did better than expected. CFO Warren Jenson said in April that Amazon should achieve its objective of "free cash flow for the year." But whether it becomes the Wal-Mart of the online space or the Kmart remains to be seen, and many will watch Bezos's every move for clues as to what and what not to do in E-tailing and E-business.
#3 Broadband
The collapse of companies like Global Crossing and WorldCom might lead one to believe that every sector of telecom suffers from gross overcapacity, but the "last mile" problem continues to plague America. So argues Technology Network, a consortium of approximately 300 technology-company CEOs and senior executives that wants to see 100-Mbps Internet access reach every home and small-to-midsize business. Arguing that such a network will create more than 1 million jobs by the end of the decade, TechNet is pushing for a national policy built largely around telecom deregulation. Consumer apathy for DSL and cable-modem services would seem to suggest that consumers, at least, don't feel a compelling need to be that wired, but when 300 CEOs say they want something, one has to take them seriously. Large companies can afford T1 lines and virtual private networks; a broadband revolution could benefit small and midsize businesses by allowing them to be as wired as the big boys at relatively low cost.
#4 Collaborative Computing
Technology may not move so quickly after all. In 1945, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Vannevar Bush published an article in Atlantic Monthly magazine called "As We May Think," which proposed a technological "infostructure" that would facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing. More than half a century later, "collaborative computing" has emerged as a hot buzz phrase — Volvo Group recently spent $10 million on software that will help truck designers work together more easily and reduce the number of prototypes needed. That's not surprising; after all, the Internet grew out of Darpanet, which was designed to allow researchers at four universities to work together. The real surprise may be that it's taken this long for companies to realize that a team may be more effective than the sum of its parts.
#5 Contingency Planning
Once upon a time, contingency planning was relatively straightforward: make sure your critical computers are supported by backup power sources, reserve time at a "disaster recovery" site, and keep a box of Triscuits in the desk drawer. But companies are no longer masters of their own information destinies: with the Internet and telecommunications networks now vital to corporate life, a disaster that strikes well away from headquarters can still bring a company to its knees. That has forced companies to revise contingency plans, and to look to the federal government to play a larger role in protecting critical information infrastructure. This summer the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, which was created in 1998 and expanded in 2000, will release version 2.0 of its national IT protection plan, spelling out how the private sector can respond to troubles ranging from electrical outages to banking and financial disruptions. As for tight budgets, you're on your own.
#6 Michael Dell
CEO, Dell Computer
Dell is a ubiquitous presence in Corporate America these days. His name adorns the best-selling personal computers in the world, and his up-from-the-dorm-room story continues to inspire chapters in just about every business book that rolls off the presses. Even if Dell had decided to make compote instead of computers, his innovative approach to manufacturing and supply-chain integration would still make him a corporate role model. No word as to whether "Steve," the company's popular "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" pitchman, is being groomed as a successor.
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