"Outsourcing is a long-term trend — bet on it"

ORLANDO: "Outsourcing is a long-term trend – bet on it." This was Charlie Feld, Executive VP (Portfolio Management), EDS telling a packed audience of 800 plus delegates at TUCON 2006, Tibco Software's annual user conference at Omni Resort in Orlando.

In his keynote address, Feld held forth on the future technology roadmap. Coming out in support of increasing outsourcing by corporations, he said, “Half of what we do inside a firm today, will be outsourced or eliminated within 20 years. This will include 50 percent of blue collar roles, 80 percent of clerical roles and 20 percent of professional roles.” In fact, he felt that globalization will accelerate. “Where, how, when and by whom the work gets done is shifting.”

Talking about the changing role of CIOs, Feld said that the 21st century CIO has an obligation to “set agenda, build a great team and deliver on a consistent basis.” He advised all the global 2000 corporations to make a journey – “Back to the Future”. His prescription for them: well-run businesses require well-run IT execution.

Taking of from Feld was Scott Adams, the creator of the famed Dilbert comic strip. In his plain down to earth manner, Adams tried to make the audience understand the connection between the day-to-day working of corporations with the daily strip of Dilbert, which appears in more than 2000 publications worldwide. Liberally illustrating his address with Dilbert strips, he said, “Dilbert is all around us.”

Earlier in his inaugural address, Vivek Ranadive, Chairman & CEO, Tibco Software, brought the house down when he started his speech with, “I have a lot of similarities with Dilbert.” On a more serious note, he went about espousing the cause of the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), which Tibco is so passionate about. Bashing companies like IBM and Oracle, he thundered, “Database Oriented Architecture is an architecture for extortion. There is a sea change occurring. Now it is the era of Service Oriented Architecture.”

In fact, he was very vocal about IBM and its actions. Taking off on the likes of Oracle's Larry Ellison who does not let go of any opportunity to indulge in his bout of Microsoft bashing, Ranadive also did not mince words when it came to IBM. Some of his choicest 'compliments': “IBM is very good at copying. IBM is not the sacred cow it used to be. CIOs now would rather prefer not to work with IBM. We are more stable than IBM in terms of balance sheet.”

TUCON 2006 is the annual user conference of the $ 446 million Palo Alto-based Tibco Software Inc, a business integration and process management software company that enables real time business. The theme of this two-day conference “Learn, Engage and Leverage” is designed to facilitate attendees' opportunity to collaborate with an extensive network of Tibco experts, partners, peers and industry leaders. The basic idea is to deliver on their real-time vision and deepen their practical knowledge of Business Process Management (BPM), business optimization and SOA.

Asim Raina was hosted in Orlando by Tibco Software.