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Gartner Chairman and CEO Michael Fleisher Speaking at Monday's Welcome Address |
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Symposium Attendees Find Many Opportunities to Learn
Thursday, 27 March 2003
Gartner chairman and CEO Michael Fleisher set the tone for Symposium/ITxpo 2003 in San Diego in his welcome address on Monday: It will be continued tough going in 2003, but the outlook for a tech sector recovery in 2004 is positive.
In the week since then, attendees have been engaged in acquiring information, getting questions answered and sharing experiences that will be essential to drive such a recovery.
The first order of business is to manage through the continued downturn of 2003. Attendees have shown a significant interest in presentations that cover the business value of IT. Seminars on strategic outsourcing received strong participation too and have generated lively discussion.
The real-time enterprise (RTE), a strategic technology initiative espoused by Gartner, is beginning to move to the forefront of many attendees' agendas who say they see the business benefit of implementing the RTE concept.
Attendees from a variety of industries, including health care, transportation and retail, see the possibilities of applying wireless and mobile information systems to their businesses. Although wireless and mobile data applications have been slow to gain traction, the market is now poised for a break out to wider acceptance.
With the war in Iraq on people's minds, many have shown a strong interest in security. The five "Emerging Storm" sessions and a town hall meeting were well-attended, and there was strong interest in preparing for a variety of crisis-induced situations such as disaster recovery, contingency planning, managing offshore assets and relationships, crisis-related IT personnel issues and the economic impact of war and terrorism on business.
Despite a troubling geopolitical climate and challenging economic environment, Mr. Fleisher had encouraged attendees on Monday to keep dreaming about how technology can improve business and society. To this end, attendees across all IT disciplines were drawn to the emerging trends and technologies sessions.
Christine Chiang
Gartner Staff
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