Accentuating the positive

The seemingly endless talk about IT 'doing more with less' is wearying. It's beginning to recall the post-war atmosphere of austerity budgets, rationing and pleas for belts to be tightened.

So it was appropriate that this year's GigaWorld IT Forum should choose to host its 'more with less' theme in the latter day Hi-De-Hi horror that is EuroDisney.

But Giga analysts are not part of the misery brigade, and they made an impressive fist of sounding positive, even passionate. Technology is still evolving, relevant and vital to the future growth of business, they suggest.

What is needed to exploit the potential of IT is clear, pragmatic, unpretentious, business-focused strategies.

Giga is proud to be a 'T-shirt' analyst - proudly pragmatic and unpretentious. The approach works very well for the 'less' part of the 'more with less' equation. Getting the best with what you have has three elements:

The technology
IT is moving fast behind the scenes. Innovation, standards and smarter architectures mean that we will see substantial progress on some of the most glaringly obvious user concerns, such as security, battery life and mobility.

Perhaps most significant is the quiet rise of web services, which has evolved without the same unforgiving hype that followed, say, e-commerce.

That's partly because it is essentially an unglamorous enabler. In many ways, it's a T-shirt technology.

While it may not exactly be a prerequisite of an integrated, interoperable, standards-based, 'service-oriented architecture', it will certainly be at the core of its mainstream development.

The vendors
The user has the whip hand in the current economic situation, and needs to exploit his or her advantage to the same extent as the suppliers did during the easy-money years.

Good relationships are beneficial provided they are on your terms, suggests Giga. Negotiate the best prices, use reverse auctions, and insist on short-term contracts.

Or as De Niro's Al Capone puts it in The Untouchables: "You'll get further with a smile and a gun than just a smile."

If innovation is part of your agenda, make the vendor share the risks. "You'll feel happier spending someone else's money," says Giga research fellow Rob Enderle.

The business
Perhaps the most important element of any IT strategy right now is alignment with business. Impress the chief executive, understand and follow the business agenda, and become a strategic leader, is Giga vice president Carl Zetie's advice on developing mobile technologies. It pretty much goes for every other area.

IT professionals have a future when they can prove their benefits to the whole business, if not in pounds and pence, then in some measurable value such as customer satisfaction.

Which brings us to the complex issue of what makes up the 'more' that will be expected. In the medium term, it's possible to have a fair idea about what will be demanded of IT.

Forrester analyst Charles Homs points out the need for business and government to comply with a glut of legislation that has arisen from the proliferation of data, corporate scandals and international terrorism.

Those companies that haven't yet got the message will soon understand that managing information will be a life or death issue for business - and guess where the pressure's going to fall.

It is also possible to see attractive opportunities to exploit new technologies. But a real strategic thinker requires a longer range, which has not traditionally been seen as Giga's strong suit. Of course, it is no longer alone.

The analyst has a new owner in Forrester, an organisation that is anything but a T-shirt business - more Ivy League Brooks Brothers collars.

And it is not short of pretensions to grandeur. You couldn't ask a Forrester analyst the way to the loos without them mentioning that their company invented the phrase 'client-server'.

Forrester is currently nurturing high hopes for 'organic IT', a spin on the on-demand/utility models.

It's one of those grand theories of everything, combining a set of technologies to create a trend that will, claims Homs, be as big as mainframes or the internet.

And to be fair, the ideas at its core are coherent, intelligent and logical, like a brilliant battle plan. But, of course, battles never go to plan.

So Giga and Forrester on paper seem to be a match made in heaven with very little duplication: generals and NCOs. The big question for the new organisation is one every IT professional faces: can you really make it as a pragmatic visionary, or a visionary pragmatist?

Giga's engaging vice president of research, Dan Mahoney, says that the key will be debate, negotiation and flexibility. But there cannot be direct conflicts. Is that possible? And who is analysing the analysts?

WHAT THE GIGA ANALYSTS SAY

"Businesses are still looking at competitiveness. They are turning to IT professionals and saying they need to do more, but they are not giving any more money." - Dan Rasmus, vice president.

"We need to define what we measure in IT. It may not be hard dollars. It may, in fact, be something simple such as customer satisfaction." - Carl Zetie, vice president.

"IT people are dreadful at communication. They're looking for a bigger megaphone when they need to understand that the first part of communication is listening." - Duncan Ellis, senior analyst.

"Organic IT is not going to have any impact on your spending in the next 12 to 18 months." - Stan Schatt, vice president, research leader.

"During the internet bubble era, there was a feeling that everything was moving towards thin clients. Now you need to look at getting a rich-client strategy." - Mike Gilpin, senior analyst.

KEY TRENDS:

Mobility in the Enterprise
by Carl Zetie

• Mobile technology needs to be seen as an enabler, not an end in itself.
• Successful strategies will be business focused and measurable.

With mobile technologies, you get out what you put in. The biggest benefits will come where IT is an enabler of business change.

The first wave of adoption tends to be just giving kit to those workers who spend their time out and about, such as the sales force. It may make what you already do a bit more efficient, but little more than that.

Stage two may be to look at how mobile IT can release other staff from the tyranny of the desktop, giving them access to mission-critical data while on the move.

Although rare at the moment, we will increasingly see businesses working out how to use mobile technologies as part of a wider IT strategy to make big changes.

The key is to remain in tune with the wider business objectives of the chief executive. "Everything you do must be aligned and tied back into the business strategy," says Zetie.

And like every other part of the business strategy it must be measurable; not necessarily in financial terms, but by some criteria such as customer satisfaction.

Mobility is risky business and fraught with potential problems, including security, privacy, health and safety, and even ergonomic. Prepare for them. The successful strategy will be inclusive, flexible, visible, relevant and motivated.

Wireless Strategies
by Stan Schatt

• Advances in standards and technology offer the prospect of inexpensive and attractive wireless options over the next year.
• Users may decide to pilot projects now, but should delay full-scale deployments until all standards and architecture issues are resolved.

Wireless technologies will enter the business mainstream for simple reasons. First, the convenience and efficiencies they bring are clear and measurable.

Second, advances in technology are improving performance and bringing down prices. The advance will also be supported by the embedding of wireless chips in hardware. Intel, for example, is already putting wireless chips in laptops.

Finally, the biggest reasons for resisting adoption - security and standards - are being addressed. "There's work at the international level to make everything interoperable," says Schatt.

The suggested merging of US and European standards around 802.11h, in particular, would open up the market.

"If it happens, it will make it much more possible for companies to offer products in all markets," explains Schatt.

The future looks promising but don't fall for talk of a wireless revolution. The market is evolving, and it may take a couple of years to iron our technical and standards issues.

"You should be very careful in your decisions about wireless Lans. So much is changing that you may decide to simply pilot some new projects now, but wait until next year to deploy full-scale wireless projects," says Schatt.

Service-Oriented Architecture
by Philip Murphy

• Service-oriented architecture means creating the right alignment of IT and business needs.
• IT must invest in service orientation or face extinction.

The future of IT decision makers depends fundamentally on the ability to allow and support wider business strategies. To make that happen, however, requires marrying the right technology and the right thinking.

Integration is key, but that's a big word without a coherent plan. The solution starts with a service-oriented architecture: standards-based technology that allows business units of work to be provided and consumed as services.

It sounds easy enough, but making the idea work to the maximum advantage of the business is a taller order.

It means aligning the need for efficient, fast and highly functional business processes with IT that can build in flexibility and integrate heterogeneous platforms, languages and paradigms.

Prepare for problems with people, skills and management structure, as well as the expected technical issues.

The answer is to draw up a collaborative plan that educates and evangelises, but crucially can prove its value to the business. The process needs to start now because "business patience is perilously thin".

"It departments that are not focused on business value will become victims of outsourcing and their CIOs will be pounding the pavement looking for work," says Murphy.