Where is the technology industry going and what should customers be focussing on? Last week, executives from five top IT vendors, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Dell, and EMC met to debate these questions.

The results are hardly surprising. Steve Redman, managing director of EMC Australia, says the future is all about storage. "The last 20 years have been about technology. Look at IT sectors and it's all about the technology, there hasn't been much debate on information," says Redman.

At the moment, he doesn't believe we are handling information effectively. "How much do you pay attention to helping make business better, not just your business more profitable?" he asks.

With the flood of information due to hit our inboxes in the next few years, coupled with legal compliance to archive all information for seven years, he says the challenge for IT managers will be to effectively store and manage that data.

Oracle director of business and technology solutions, Roland Slee, also believes the way we handle information is poor, but he says we are slaves to the advancement of technology. He uses month-end analysis as an example. At the moment companies wait until the end of the month to analysis their data, and he says we are so entrenched in doing it that way that people believe that is the way it should be done. Yet Slee says we only do it that way because the technology dictates that we have to, which is a fact he doesn't think the industry understands.

Slee says information systems today are "poorly inaccurate" and he believes part of the problem is that there are too many systems, hundreds in every enterprise. The answer according to Slee is to centralise and standardise the delivery of information, consolidate all the systems and use the power of grid computing to help manage that data.

He sees a future of real-time analysing, where you can access and analyse data after one day, or an hour even, not month-end. Of course, he sees the database as central to this. "It's all about the database," he says.

David Bolt, managing director of Intel Australia, has a different angle on the relationship between information and technology. He says of the technology products sold today, 70 percent are for replacement or upgrade, and he believes the future growth will come from mobile products--which is no suprise coming from a vendor espousing wireless technology.

Bolt believes companies will be using wireless technology to find new ways of servicing customers and his prediction is that access to a wireless network will be free, and users will pay for the services.

Perhaps the most interesting response was from Dell Australia's managing director David Miller. Instead of making predictions on the future, Miller talked about the reason behind Dell's success--its supply chain. Dell has been focusing on moving information through its supply chain for around 20 years. Miller says as soon as a customer order is taken, it is immediately sent out into Dell's supply chain and on to the factory, resulting in built-to-order products delivered within days. Miller says because the supply chain is so strong, Dell doesn't need to keep inventory on hand.

Which is the antithesis to competitor IBM's utility computing strategy. Miller says: "Utility is waiting for capacity on demand, Dell doesn't think that works."

Mark Isles, chief operating officer at Microsoft Australia, disagreed with EMC's Redman and Oracle's Slee by saying he feels he already has access to all the information he needs. Instead, Isles believes the next challenge for the industry is to provide that access securely.

While it is hard to draw a simple conclusion from all of this, one common theme amongst the various vendors is change. All of them see advances in technology that can change the way we manage information, and they are also seeing customers willing to change the way they do business, whether it be a move to consolidated storage, grid computing, or mobile enterprises.

Miller says while IT budgets are not as big as they once were, nor will they be again, companies aren't afraid to ditch their old investments and replace with the new. "We are seeing it," he says.

Using this debate as an example, the challenge to consumers seems to be negotiating the various vendor interests to find the most appropriate use of new technology. Perhaps we can take Miller's statement about Dell as sage advice: "We don't distract ourselves with irrelevant technology and products that customers don't need."

The roundtable debate was held at EMC's offices and was in aid of the launch of EMC's solution centre, both in North Sydney. Following in the footsteps of Hewlett Packard and IBM -- who have both launched technology solutions centres in the last 12 months, EMC has spent more than AU$3 million setting up a centre full of EMC storage boxes, as well as its competitors' products.

The centre has a capacity of 40 terabytes with the ability to expand to 200 terabytes. Customers are able to come in and test the latest EMC technology, with the ability to replicate their own business environment for a risk assessment. Redman says he expects between 10 and 20 customers will use the centre every week.

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