Miles to Go

BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY

MILES TO GO

These CEOs say IT can go much further in helping them solve their business problems BY JOHN FOLEY

WITH THE CEOs OF FIVE MAJOR COMPANIES sitting across from him, Microsoft group VP Jeff Raikes recently described how he uses three tablet PCs in his daily work, keeping his data synced up via Microsoft software. The place was a conference room at Microsoft’s headquarters; the subject, IT and business productivity. It was an unscripted anecdote of how one busy high-tech exec stays at the top of his game—and a stark reminder of the gap that separates power users like Raikes from millions of information workers. The discussion came at the tail end of Microsoft’s annual CEO Summit, attended by about 100 chief executives on May 21 and 22. They had gotten a full dose from Microsoft’s senior managers on the company’s business-technology strategy and philosophy—and dinner at the home of chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates. Each attendee was given a new tablet PC loaded with the latest Microsoft productivity tools to use during the conference and, if they chose, to take with them. Yet, as impressed as they might be with the gadgetry and software demonstrations, the CEOs at Raikes’ roundtable discussion—representing Accenture, Best Buy, Flextronics, Premera Blue Cross, and Siemens USA—made it clear that neither Microsoft nor the rest of the IT industry has satisfied all their companies’ needs when it comes to using IT to solve business problems and boost productivity. In fact, their companies are far from mastering the technologies they have in place. “We’re nowhere near the end of this road, nowhere near,” said Michael Marks, chief executive of Flextronics, which manufactures equipment for tech companies such as Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard. “We have a project list as long as our arm about the next things to do.” It might seem obvious that companies continue to expect more from their IT investments, if it weren’t for the...