Gartner's recommendations for change will be specific. Its analysts have identified one task per job function that must be completed by 2009. CIOs, security managers, operations managers -- the list goes on -- all must have established, in that three-year time frame, a track record of creating more value, rather than just saving money.

We ended our sneak peak with a couple of trends that will drive significant IT demand in the future, provided IT can act on, rather than react to, change.

Global microbusiness was number one on McGee's list, meaning companies that will go after the more than 4 billion people on earth who make less than US$1,500 per year. Their needs are simple and their resources are limited, but reaching them will require a new way of looking at a market, at research and packaging, and delivering to that market. And IT can play a role.

One consumer packaged-goods company, which McGee would not name, has figured it out. McGee says that more than half of this company's revenue comes from consumers in China who make less than $500 per year.

The other trend is the phenomenal growth in health care. Soon, for the first time in human experience, there will be more people 60 years of age or older than those 15 years of age or younger. It has never happened, ever. I wrote about the idea of home health care (http://www.infoworld.com/4126) and hospitals-at-home last August.