WHO CAN I TRUST - AN INTERVIEW WITH FERNANDEZ,MANNY, CEO, GARTNERGROUP

In 1997, global companies spent $782 billion dollars on information te chnology, including network equipment, hardware, software, technical s upport and training, and the like. By 2003, that figure is expected to rise to $1.7 trillion, making information technology the fastest risi ng corporate expense. For the past two decades companies that have inv ested heavily in information technology have generally shown a steady rise in profitability, even though senior management has not been clos ely involved in IT decisions. As the cost and the strategic importance of this increasingly sophisticated technology has risen, however, top management, particularly CEOs, have gotten more and more involved. We asked Manny Fernandez, CEO of Gartner-Group, the world's foremost inf ormation technology advisory group, to comment on this trend.