Brian P. Watson

Corporate IT leaders may be overlooked in the executive suite, but their impact on the technology industry wasn’t lost on Ziff Davis Enterprise’s annual list of the most influential people in IT. Eleven CIOs–as well as numerous CTOs and information security experts–made the top 100 list, compiled by editors from CIO Insight, eWeek and Baseline. […]

IT leaders don’t think they’re quite on par with other C-level executives, but very few believe the role will disappear, according to new research by CIO Insight. In CIO Insight‘s April research report on the role of the CIO , we asked IT leaders for their take on six notable quotations about the role itself. […]

Like some new CIOs, Jim Barton had no IT experience before taking the post at IVK Corp. Unlike all other new CIOs, Barton isn’t real: He’s the protagonist of an upcoming book, You Won’t Last a Year: Becoming an Effective Information Technology Leader, a fictional case study by Robert Austin, chair of Harvard Business School’s […]

Google long ago became more than just the name of an Internet search behemoth and turned into a verb synonymous with the company’s core specialty. Now Yahoo–Google’s chief search competitor–also finds its brand name redefined. Asked in early March if his firm had any plans for a major acquisition, IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano replied, […]

Business executives talk about IT innovation more often than they achieve it, says Bobby Cameron, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, who backs up his statement with a Forrester report released in late February. Cameron spoke recently with Brian P. Watson, CIO Insight‘s online editor; this is an edited, condensed version of their […]

Gartner finally dropped the bomb that every one saw coming, announcing in late February that CIOs should start cutting costs. Gartner’s advisory reflects an increasing pessimism among tech sages about the impact of an economic downturn on corporate IT budgets. The advisory laid out guidelines on how to plan for cost-cutting, but didn’t specify what […]

Despite worries of a recession, about one in five CIOs at larger firms expect to hire new workers in the second quarter, according to new research.   Robert Half Technology’s new hiring survey finds that while the vast majority of businesses expect IT staffing to remain stagnant next quarter, a net of 12 percent say […]

In his new book, Outsmart! How to Do What Your Competitors Can’t (FT Press, 2008), Jim Champy chronicles the success of companies that reengineered their business models to transform both their organizations and their industries. In his research, Champy looked at more than 1,000 companies with double- to triple-digit growth. What he produced is a […]

CIOs’ intimate involvement in choosing an IT service provider shouldn’t be surprising; after all, outsourcing is becoming a fundamental way businesses achieve efficiencies. Isn’t that the job of the CIO? Seeking a better understanding of what CIOs look for in their outsourcers–and what IT providers need to know about their clients’ expectations, Ziff Davis Enterprise […]

A strikingly high number of executives say their IT outsourcing projects met their return-on-investment goals, casting a positive light on one of IT’s more complex areas, a new study reveals. But despite the positive results, the dark side of outsourcing persists, with many executives wishing they could go back in time. According to Deloitte Consulting’s […]

In times of economic crisis, companies are quick to slash IT costs. With fears of a recession looming over the corporate world, CIOs are facing the axe once again. But no matter how many times CIOs proclaim their strategic value–or the strategic value of their departments–businesses too often view IT as a cost, plain and […]

From the start, technologists and marketers promoted Web 2.0 technologies–Wikis! Blogs! Podcasts!–as smarter, cheaper ways to communicate with employees, partners and customers.   It all sounded so appealing businesses couldn’t help but buy in: Throughout 2007, surveys showed an increasing number of Web 2.0 deployments in the corporate world.   But is Web 2.0 not all it’s cracked up […]