The comments were made at the inaugural Australian IT Forum in Sydney this afternoon. The at times controversial Murray made headlines last year when he lashed out at technology companies at the World Congress on IT, accusing the U.S. computer industry of "single-handedly wrecking" the global economy. Today the chief executive re-iterated his views -- but suggested vendors are starting to learn some valuable lessons.
"We had been through an unprecedented equity market bubble based predominantly on IT and some of the claims that were being made about what you could do with a business with IT were preposterous," he explained. "It was getting out of control.... but that doesn't mean that IT's not valuable."
Describing the effect of the tech-wreck in purely economic terms, Murray argues a full recovery is yet to take place. "The size of the bubble actually has created a structural problem in the world's largest economy which we haven't even worked through yet," he said.
On the upside, Murray said vendors and corporations are learning how to work together more effectively. As the IT industry has matured, so have negotiation and contracting processes.
"The vendor has got to provide some value and the purchaser has got to work out how to get value," he told forum attendees. "The issue with newer technologies is that we don't have established contracting arrangements. In old technology like the construction industry, people have worked out contracts that are evenly balanced in negotiating power."
"Because IT was moving so fast that hadn't yet happened. I think we're going to have a valuable correction now in which there's much more evenness in bargaining power about how the contract is created, the expectations for delivery and some of the financial consequences for non-delivery," Murray added. "I think that's very valuable to the IT industry because the contracts that are written will be more sustainable."
