Critical Needs: 5 Technology Decisions Every Enterprise Makes

Finally, enterprise-technology spending is finding equilibrium. Risk-adverse companies are shifting back to growth mode, and CIOs are thinking strategically. While cost containment is still key, many new technologies are ready and waiting. We look at five technologies--the desktop, identity and access management (IAM), VoIP, RFID and power peripherals--likely to come up in every enterprise's strategic planning.

The Next Desktop

Most CIOs have little to say about the forthcoming iteration of Windows Vista, the operating system developed under the code name Longhorn.

With the first beta version of Vista just released, Microsoft is promising its general release in late 2006. Those who remember the launch of Windows 95 a decade ago agree: CIOs won't be waiting up at midnight the day of Vista's release.

Nonetheless, like previous Windows and Office upgrades, Microsoft will likely force enterprises to upgrade to Vista. Once new PCs ship, if Microsoft is true to form, machines bundled with Windows XP ultimately will be hard, if not impossible, to come by.

"We will move cautiously toward [Vista]," says Burlington Coat Factory CIO Michael Prince. "When it comes out and as we buy new systems, we will make sure our existing stuff works in [Vista], but I don't see us going back and retrofitting all of our XP boxes. At some point, we will probably retire the boxes with Windows 2000."

As history has proven, and solution-provider strategies should reflect, customers will be wary of upgrading to Vista until they know how it will impact existing desktop systems.

"The key issue for Windows Vista is, will it break any of my apps, and is it consistent with my governance approach, my policies and so on?" ponders Peter O'Kelly an analyst at the Burton Group. "People are looking at it more as an incremental refinement than a big-bang release."

Despite skepticism, solution providers are hopeful that Vista will be the hook that leads to upgrades of Office, moves to the .Net framework and other new Microsoft apps later this year, including SQL Server.

"Anytime Microsoft has a major change of product, it's going to be on CIOs' radar screens," counters John Marks, CEO of JDM Infrastructure, a Rosemont, Ill.-based solution provider.

But O'Kelly notes that while Vista will no doubt provide an improved user experience and better security, CIOs also have other options, such as a slew of thin-client terminals from the likes of Citrix, PC blades from companies such as ClearCube and IBM, as well as Java on the desktop, based on frameworks such as the LotusWorkPlace.

Identity & Access Management

Security and compliance remain top priorities for any enterprise. More CIOs are looking at deploying identity and access management (IAM) tools, says Dalton Luz, CEO of Politec, a Reston, Va.-based solution provider serving the health-care industry. Politec is in the early stages of deploying Computer Associates' identity-management solutions at Advocate Health Care in Chicago.

Luz says Advocate, like many health-care enterprises, is turning to biometric authentication in light of new HIPAA security requirements. "This is a big decision many CIOs are making, not just from an IT perspective, but so they can be compliant with new regulations," Luz says.

The decision comes down to whether CIOs are going to build federated identity-management solutions, which essentially support cross-boundary single sign-on, and if so, whether those solutions will be based on the Liberty Alliance or WS-Federation backed by Sun Microsystems and numerous large organizations, or WS-Federation, backed by IBM and Microsoft.

The choice should get somewhat easier now that the two camps have agreed on an interoperability specification called WebSingle Sign-On Meta Data Exchange Protocol, or SSO MEX. Just as important is the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2 spec, which is the convergence of the original SAML with WS-Federation and Shibboleth (a university standard), says Gerry Gebel, an analyst at Burton Group. "Ready or not, it's going to be out in Active Directory when Microsoft releases [version] 2 of Windows Server 2003."

When General Motors last month inked the largest-ever contract to deploy Sun Microsystems' Java Enterprise System, one of the main reasons was to provide a common identity-management infrastructure. Too many passwords mean accessing GM's systems requires calling the help desk to have passwords reset. At an average of $35 per call, the password reset costs add up quickly.

Sun's JES leverages GM's LDAP directories (including departmental networks based on Microsoft's AD, as well as enterprise directories such as Sun's Directory Server). With more than 300,000 employees worldwide, and many suppliers, partners and even competitors that have access to various GM systems, multiple passwords were becoming a costly burden.

"More passwords are less secure than ever," argues Fred Killeen, GM's director of systems development and the interim chief of technology. While GM is looking to reduce the number of passwords individuals have, Killeen says getting to the point where individuals sign on to everything with one password is not the end goal, meaning there are some systems that will still benefit from dual authentication. "I can live with someone getting into my calendar, but not into my Fidelity account," he adds.

Voice & Data Convergence

Everyone seems to be talking about it, but will next year's IT budgets include massive IP-telephony system rollouts? The consensus seems to be that it will happen in a more piecemeal fashion, but at a faster pace than it has in the past.

Take Burlington Coat Factory's Prince. The company's telephone switches already run over the retailer's frame-relay WAN for internal voice communications. But the telephone sets still run over internal dedicated key systems. Prince says he'd like to incrementally roll out handsets that work over the company's wireless LAN, allowing better employee communication throughout the stores.

As part of a plan to roll out Oracle's Collaboration Suite, he says integrating voicemail and e-mail onto a common system is part of that plan, but that it has to be a durable, highly available, "hardened" system.

GM is looking at VoIP tactically, Killeen says. While the auto giant is conducting pilots, it is doing so in geographies where it sees an obvious payback. GM is not convinced VoIP is mature enough to be rolled out globally for an enterprise its size.

"It's still reasonably immature from a globalization standpoint," Killeen says. It will be mature, he adds, when he can deploy the same product anywhere in the world.

Mike Grieb, a VoIP sales engineer at IntelliMark, a Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based systems integrator, disagrees with GM's notion that VoIP isn't mature enough. "The business case is not so difficult; it's more of a management and economic decision now than a technical one," Grieb says.

But as existing phone systems are decommissioned, many solution providers see customers going to IP-based systems, even if they don't converge over the wide-area backbone overnight. Some integrators are finding a healthy business performing network assessments. As for the next step, enterprise customers will be considering Avaya, Cisco and Nortel, among others. The move to VoIP will also give Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino partners the opportunity to upsell integrated messaging solutions.

RFID

Thanks to Wal-Mart, radio-frequency identification (RFID) is perhaps the most hyped technology these days. The retail giant passed a mandate for its top suppliers to put RFID tags on shipping containers so they can be tracked throughout the supply chain. The Department of Defense has a similar initiative.

But more enterprises are leading the RFID charge.

"It's much bigger than just Wal-Mart," says Greg Gilbert, director of RFID at Atlanta-based solution provider Manhattan Associates. He points to retailers including Albertsons, Best Buy, CVS and Target, along with suppliers including Procter & Gamble and shippers including FedEx, as those who have major RFID initiatives afoot.

The health-care industry is also leveraging RFID for patient tracking (via wheelchairs) and medication management. The Henry Ford Health System, which includes five hospitals and an insurance organization and sees $2.6 billion in revenue, is among those conducting RFID pilots to track patients.

"We see this as an opportunity to more efficiently manage assets, and in turn, ensure accountability and more efficiency," says Arthur Gross, CIO of the Health System.

Manhattan Associates' Gilbert warns clients that just because their current customers and business partners aren't already on the RFID bandwagon, they shouldn't presume they're off the hook.

Still, RFID is at its earliest phase of adoption and isn't expected to have the same impact on IT spending as networking, servers or storage. But as customers deploy RFID, even those solution providers not involved specifically with installing RFID readers and infrastructure from the likes of Hypercom, LXE, RightTag and Symbol, shouldn't presume it won't leave them with a roll in those deployments. Consider all of the information that will traverse the network as a result of transactions generated by RFID, and the impact that will have on databases and storage every time inventory moves through the supply chain.

Power Peripherals

So-called "power peripherals" are particularly hot these days--LCDs, printers, projection systems and a slew of others such as portable disk drives and KVS switches.

Very few organizations are reluctant to toss old CRTs in favor of an LCD. "The price points of LCDs (as low as $200 now) have made it attractive to go ahead and upgrade," says Jim Garrity, president of PC Connection's MoreDirect subsidiary. Garrity notes LCDs are easier to manage and administer, provide more space on the desktop, making workers more productive, and they use significantly less power.

As customers seek to get more out of their copiers, fax machines and printers, a growing number are considering multifunction and color printers, though CIOs are looking to get more control over these procurements to get economies of scale. As such, expect rogue departmental and individual spending by the largest customers to subside.