Wireless tops the list of CIO priorities, according to an article in Wireless NewsFactor.
“I would wager that you cannot find an executive within our company who doesn t have a Blackberry and isn’t connected 24×7,” says Northrop Grumman CIO Thomas Shelman. “If I was to e-mail our CEO right now, he would answer within five minutes.
“But that’s just scratching the surface of what I believe wireless technology will enable over the next five years,” continues Shelman. “The virtual workplace is going to continue to explode. And companies that don’t do that, I don t know how they are going to survive.”
CIOs recognize that they may not have the luxury of as much time as they would like when it comes to evaluating wireless. “Mobile and wireless is something that CIOs have to come to terms with,” believes Cora Carmody, CIO, SAIC. “We are fast approaching the day when we will not be able to buy a desktop or a laptop that is not already wireless-capable.”
When CIO Today asked CIOs from Fortune 1000 companies to name the most important emerging technologies for the enterprise, their emphasis was on the ability of those technologies to positively impact their enterprises’ bottom line.
The emerging technologies most often mentioned by CIOs have to do with mobility — wireless devices and RFID. Although few enterprises are running large-scale initiatives, most are slowly getting their feet wet with mobile technologies.
“Wireless is an expanding technology that is moving beyond the PDA , and we are looking at opportunities to use wireless applications in our business, such as moving voice and data out to our field force,” Bennett L. Gaines, vice president and CTO, Cinergy, told CIO Today. “The cost has come down fairly rapidly, making wireless much more compelling to use across your business.”
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