Technological complexity, increasingly demanding users, and budgets that are, if not still shrinking, certainly not growing -- faced with all this, you would not be surprised if most CIOs are wishing for a cure-all in their Christmas stockings this year. As it turned out, the CIOs to whom Computing SA spoke had somewhat more modest requirements.

Absa Bank Ltd. CIO, Frik van der Merwe, puts security at the top of his list, saying that he expects nothing to change in terms of Absa?s continued focus on identity management, authentication and authorization. Second up came storage. ?Legislation around information classification and information management, coupled with the Fica requirements, will have an explosive effect on storage requirements,? he says. ?This in turn impacts on document management and imaging systems, as you cannot keep all that information on disk without being able to access it. This is an area which will see increased focus from us next year.?

Henri Slabbert, CIO of Edcon Group, a speciality retailer group that owns brands like Edgars, Jet and Boardmans, says that RFID tops the retailer?s list of technologies that are anxiously awaited. ?RFID is here but not here,? he says. ?It is what everyone in the retail world is waiting for. In the next two to three years we will start to see operational systems, currently there are only one or two isolated RFID systems. We plan to start playing with RFID next year, particularly in our distribution systems.?

Says Willie Appel, vice-president, international, Executive Directions, Meta Group: ?RFID will help to improve sensing capabilities and automate or reduce process cycles in various industries, such as food, retail, manufacturing, transportation and defense. Price levels will continue to drop below the critical $0,10 level, making it economically viable in certain mass applications (e.g. front end-retail, public transportation, immigration, security). CIOs will face difficult RFID-related issues in terms of ROI, privacy, compliance and standardization.?

Next up on Slabbert?s list is a single pervasive monitoring and management tool. ?IT solutions are incredibly complex, we need a single tool that will enable us to manage different components, as well as the business processes that sit on top of the architecture.?

Slabbert also highlights security. ?A lot of time and money goes into securing systems -- we need better products that require less input from users to make users secure.?

Fundamental shift

High up on Appel?s list is Open Source Software (OSS). He says that OSS is not a passing fad, but a fundamental shift in the IT industry. ?Virtually every IT organization will be affected by Linux/Open Source penetration during the next three to five years,? he states. ?Open Source is not about free software, but about acceptable vendor margins for commoditized components.

?Open Source will affect multiple segments of the software industry: operating systems, collaborative tools, Web servers and browsers, application servers, databases, middleware, basic business applications, security, application development etc,? he adds. ?Software commoditization will alter IT economic realities and perceptions (fair price for licences and services), and CIOs must establish a proactive plan for Linux/Open Source in their enterprises. It will happen anyway, so it is better to control its evolution,? he notes.

Alt-X-listed Xantium Technology Holdings Pty. Ltd. CTO, Grant Allan, concurs, but notes that the problem with OSS is choosing which horse to back. ?There are so many distributions out there, how do you know which will still be around in a few years, and which will be swallowed up by bigger players??

Wireless is also a hot issue. Slabbert notes that wireless provides ten times the capacity at half the price of wire in the network space, and says that in the networks area his team is waiting to be able to push far more functionality down the pipes.

Van der Merwe says that he would like to see true wireless. ?Without the nightmare we currently have with cables, we would be able to connect our branches far more easily. Of course, security needs to go hand in hand with that.?

The coming deregulation of VoIP also gets a mention. ?A huge amount is spent on voice communication at the moment,? says Van der Merwe, ?we currently spend twice as much on voice as we do on data. We see huge opportunity there, with a lot of new players entering the market.?

Says Allan: ?This is another challenging area, as it is not yet clear which players are doing what. Do you sign exclusively with a large player, or opt for a smaller player with a niche focus? Companies need to be careful not to get tied into contracts when the playing field is not established and the rules have not yet been written.?

In terms of mobility, says Appel: ?Metropolitan Wimax services will provide more seamless Wi-Fi roaming. We are going to see the convergence of PSTN/IT/Cable television/3G technologies and the emergence of hybrid end-user devices combining PDA, phone and laptop functions and form factors. CIOs should drive a proactive definition of a corporate plan and formal policies regarding mobility, including establishing the business case for mobility in terms of cost reduction, process improvement, employee availability and accessibility. CIOs also need to take cost of ownership, ROI and security into account.?

Says Slabbert: ?Video is another big area for us. We now have the tools that allow us to analyze video. This can tell us, for example, how many people are in a queue, or can conduct facial recognition, or tell us in which areas people congregate in our stores. We are definitely going to be playing around with this next year.?

The high cost of bandwidth, along with the hope that this will drop, and that the SNO will become a reality, also get a mention or two. ?iBurst, for example, offers a 1MB pipe direct to a laptop or modem for around R800 (US$133),? says Allan. ?I do not understand why solutions like that are not available from the likes of Telkom. Technology has been very limited by what is available in terms of infrastructure capability and bandwidth availability. I would really like to see capable infrastructure solutions from the carriers.?

From wireless to mobile to RFID to OSS, the local IT industry looks like it is going to have fun keeping up with CIO?s demands next year. OSS looks set to really start making MS uncomfortable, and the VoIP deregulation will no doubt see another load of Y2K-like hype being splashed around. On the other hand, business is now in the driver?s seat as far as technology is concerned, and it has no use for hype. It knows what it wants and needs -- CIOs, and their associated partners and service providers, had better be up for the challenge.