The Winds Of Change Are Blowing

Gartner To Midsize CIOs: The Winds Of Change Are Blowing
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By Andrew R Hickey, ChannelWeb

4:44 PM EDT Tue. Jun. 17, 2008
Gartner research vice president Robert Anderson made his message loud and clear Tuesday, when addressing a packed house of CIOs at Everything Channel's and Vision Events' Midsize Enterprise Summit Europe in Barcelona: "There are profound and dramatic shifts that are occurring today that effect us all in IT."

And Anderson wasn't kidding. In his hour-long keynote presentation kicking off the event, he touched on a host of shifts in IT that not only impact CIOs of midsized companies, but all of IT. And he cautioned that failing to adapt could leave them all behind.

In a short but unsettling video, Anderson outlined a host of forces that are hitting IT, and CIOs might not even know it yet. For example, he pointed out that if the collective users of MySpace banded together to form their own country, it would be the eighth largest country in the world. He also noted that the influx of mobile devices has grown exponentially and that the number of text messages sent per day trumps the number of people on earth.

What's that all mean to the midsize enterprise CIO? "Businesses are on a collision course with their future," he said. "Are you ready for the winds of change?"

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