Gartner sets technology priorities for CIOs

CANNES, France -- Chief information officers (CIOs) shouldn't worry about bringing IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6), 3G (third generation), or 64-bit computing to the desktop until as late as 2007 or 2008, Gartner Inc. analysts advised here Wednesday, at the company's Symposium/ITxpo conference. On the other hand, IP virtual private networks (IP VPNs), Wi-Fi, and replacement desktop machines should all be the subject of careful reflection today, the analysts counselled.

Assigning technologies to three categories, "Act now," "Next year" and "Not yet," Gartner analysts gave their views of how CIOs should prioritize new technology introduction to the enterprise.

IPv6 is strictly of interest to network operators: It is not the time for enterprises to worry about this new technology, they said, although they should act now to replace Frame Relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode, and leased line connections with IP VPN links.

According to the Gartner analysts, 3G mobile communications networks will not be business-ready before 2007 -- but smart phones and ad-hoc Wi-Fi wireless LANs (WLANs) could be in users' hands today, regardless of the CIO's readiness.

Lost or stolen smart phones containing or allowing access to important business data represent a security risk which should be anticipated and managed, said one analyst. "IT probably doesn't want them, but users are going to get them anyway. People forget that there's a lot of sensitive corporate data walking around on these devices," said Gartner analyst Delia MacMillan.

As for Wi-Fi, "802.11 WLANs are being deployed by stealth. You may have a policy against them, but you might have them already, whether you know it or not." The sure way to avoid stealth deployments is to deploy them yourself, she said.

Gartner analyst Brian Gammage dismissed the additional power of 64-bit computing as irrelevant on the desktop because no current office productivity software can take advantage of it.

On the other hand, MacMillan said, favorable exchange rates and fierce vendor competition mean 32-bit desktop PCs are available at bargain prices in Europe. "It's an excellent time to refresh the desktop," she said.

Virtualization is much talked-about in the server marketplace, where the technique allows several applications or even operating systems to coexist in different memory partitions on a single physical server. However, virtualization also holds desktop uses and should be viewed in that context over the next year, Gammage said.

"Even if a new PC is free, you still have to pay for the migration" of old desktop applications to a more modern operating system (OS), he said. Using software from companies like VMWare Inc., though, enterprises can continue to run old software on old operating systems, virtually hosted on a more modern system. While this can cut migration costs, "The big question is if you virtualize, you have a host OS and a guest OS: how many licences is that?"