The idea that CIOs must evolve to become innovators who align IT with business processes is a concept that has been put forward again and again for more than 15 years. Yet CIO surveys consistently show a gap between the idea and reality of the CIO as a strategic leader.  

In "The Trouble with Big IT " I described how Max Pucher, Beth Gold-Bernstein, and others see complexity as a stumbling block that has prevented IT practitioners from achieving agility. In a subsequent blog ("ERP, SAP, and the Sinking of Big IT ")  I described how Big IT and Big ERP practices are being rethought.

Also questioning--and condemning--the way IT has been operated is Tim Bray, former director of Web technologies at Sun, who in a blog on tbray.org on January 2, 2010, wrote, "Doing it wrong. Enterprise systems, I mean. And not just a little bit, either. Orders of magnitude wrong. Billions and billions of dollars worth of wrong. Hang-our-heads-in-shame wrong. It's time to stop the madness." 

Virtualization this year moved to the top of the list of strategic priorities in CIO surveys. As Jonathan Eunice on cnet.com on January 11, 2010 wrote, "Virtualization is being taken up at such a pace that it's hard to find a metaphor to describe it."

While the virtues of virtualization are often touted (consolidation, better utilization, cost savings on energy and floor space), one rarely hears about a downside to server virtualization.

Call it a revolt, reaction, or awakening, but companies are rethinking their IT strategies. The recession brought the axe down on IT, and in the new climate, or "new normal" as it has come to be called, the large cost of implementing and maintaining ERP solutions is being looked at askance.

As Thomas Wailgum in "The Future of ERP" on cio.com on November 17, 2009, wrote:

My last blog examined what a number of analysts see as the perilous state of the CIO's position.  While these observers generally believe that CIOs can preserve their jobs by stepping up their performance, such as doing a better job of aligning technology with business initiatives, another group believes the position of CIO is headed towards inevitable extinction regardless of what CIOs do.

Describing the results of a CIO Insight survey, Guy Currier in "CIO Blowback" on cioinsight.com on June 3, 2009, wrote:

CIOs, it seems, are under siege. Gartner VP Mark McDonald on his gartner.com blog on March 10, 2010, warns that CIOs who fail to recognize the major shift that is occurring may find themselves "out in the cold with their clothes on the front lawn wondering ‘what happened?' " 

When Sharon Gaudin reported that "Google-Microsoft Search War Hits New Heights" on computerworld.com on March 2, 2010, what she really meant was that the war had reached new lows.

Said Gaudin, "The already heated online search war cranked up a notch in recent days as Google officials openly blamed Microsoft for triggering the European Commission's antitrust probe into its activities."

To overtake Netscape, Microsoft cloned its browser. To neutralize Sun's Java, Microsoft produced a clone in the form of .NET. 

In going after Google, Microsoft is using the same playbook. It has produced a copycat search engine in Bing, and is building data centers in a feverish attempt to duplicate the vaunted Googleplex.

My article "Bing vs. Google: A Rorschach Test " looked at how different observers saw the search engine battle playing out.  Raising the purview, in the larger battle between Google and Microsoft, observers also tend to see Google or Microsoft prevailing.

Some observers see Microsoft in mortal peril. Among them is Matt Asay, who in "Google Keeps Tripping Over Microsoft's Grave" on cnet.com on June 18, 2009, asserts that:

In my last blog (Agility? Surely You Jest… ), I cited Max Pucher’s belief that companies are going about the quest for agility in the wrong way, by introducing more complexity in the form of SOA, ERP, BPM, XML, BPEL, CRM, ECM, etc.