Here’s the original article that this episode was based on:

Sanity check: Green IT - Does it matter for business?

Eleven percent of CIOs plan to add IT workers in the fourth quarter, 3 percent plan cuts and help desk and technical support are the hot categories as customer and user support trumps projects focused on growth.

Those are a few of the notable takeaways in an IT hiring and skills report from Robert Half Technology, a technology staffing firm.

Reading between the lines (statement) it appears that companies are working just as hard to keep customers and users happy as they are about acquiring new business. Indeed, 25 percent of the 1,400 CIOs surveyed said customer services and/or user support was the primary reason they were hiring IT staff. That’s the first time since the second quarter of 2003 that support and service was the top priority. Twenty three percent of CIOs said business growth was the primary reason they were hiring in the fourth quarter with 21 percent citing new application development and installation.

Overall, the Robert Half survey reveals that IT workers aren’t facing a boom market, but things aren’t unraveling either. Compared to other industries a little status quo is a win.

Here’s a look at a few key charts:

Helpdesk folks are en vogue followed by networking workers.

Network administration, Windows administration and desktop support were the top three skills in demand with at least 69 percent of CEOs citing those skills.

And the industries that are hiring in the fourth quarter.

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Google launched the first beta version of its Chrome Web browser on Tuesday after two years of development. Only the Microsoft Windows version has been released, but Google promised Mac and Linux versions would soon follow. TechRepublic immediately started kicking the tires and has put together a photo gallery and a quick list of the five best new features you’ll find in Google Chrome.

See TechRepublic’s full gallery First look: Google Chrome

When I heard that Google was officially going to launch its own Web browser my first thought was, “Great, that’s just what we need, another Web browser.” After seeing Google’s press conference and getting a first look at Chrome, I’m starting to warm up to the idea. I will at least give Google credit for not doing a “me too” release. They have legitimately tried to innovate and bring some new features to the Web browser — and they’ve open sourced the whole thing.

Whether or not these new features will entice Internet users to give up Internet Explorer or Firefox is still up in the air, but here are the five best new features that I see in Chrome:

1. Task manager

Chrome has its own Task Manager that shows you how much memory and CPU usage each tab and plug-in is using. You can open it by clicking Shift-Esc from within Chrome. You can get more details by clicking the “Stats for nerds” link on the Task Manager and it will open a page with a full breakdown of memory and CPU usage for each process within the browser.

I also like that Chrome makes each tab a separate process in Windows, so you can also go into the Windows Task Manager and shut down one of them if it’s locked up. It also means that a bad process in one tab won’t kill your whole browser session.

2. One box for search, address, and history

Instead of having separate input boxes for the search bar and the address bar, Google has united the two in Chrome. Google also added history to the equation. So you can type something like “techrepublic” in the box and it will suggest the techrepublic.com home page as well as other recently visited TechRepublic pages. This is similar to the new “Awesome bar” in Firefox 3 but Google’s “One box” includes search as well. If you type “techrepublic” in the box and hit return then it will simply open it in Google.com (or your default search engine).

3. Upgraded tabs

The Chrome development team views tabs as one of the best new innovations to Web browsing in recent years and so they wanted to expand the functionality of tabs since users . In Chrome you can drag a tab into its own window, and drag it back to the main window. This is called “Dynamic Tabs.” Also, by default, the “New Tab” page in Chrome features a page that shows thumbnails of your most visited Web sites, a list of your recent bookmarks, and a search box that allows you to search your history.

4. New support for Web applications

Naturally, Google believes in Web-based applications and is invested in a future that includes applications running from the cloud and running in a Web browser. Current Web applications include Google Docs, Salesforce.com, and Outlook Web Access. Chrome makes it easier to make those applications feel more like desktop apps.

From the start page of your Web application you simply click the Chrome controls icon and then click “Create applications shortcuts” and you can create Desktop, Start Menu, and/or Quick Launch icons. Then when you launch those apps they open in a streamlined window without the address bar and separate from the Chrome Web browser window. If the apps integrate with Google Gears then you can even open them when you’re offline.

5. Incognito browsing

Chrome includes an Incognito mode in which users can go to sites but nothing from that session — history, form fields, or cookies — will be saved in Chrome. This can be useful on shared computers and when viewing sensitive data through the Web browser. The beta version of Internet Explorer 8 includes a similar feature.

Other notes

So far, I’ve also been impressed with the speed of Chrome. Google stated that performance was a big consideration when building the browser, which is why they chose Webkit (the same open source engine that powers Safari) as the engine for Chrome. Chrome’s downloads bar and downloads tracking window makes it much easier to gauge and monitor downloads, too.

I also liked the fact that you can mouse over a link and see the URL in a translucent status bar in the lower left-hand corner (which fades out once you move the mouse away from a link). I tend to turn on the status bar in IE and Firefox because I like to view URLs before I click them, but this takes up real estate at the bottom of the screen when I’m not previewing URLs. Chrome solves that problem by making it appear and disappear automatically. Combined with the lack of a menu bar at the top of the screen this can give Chrome more vertical space for viewing Web pages on the screen.

Google is launching a Web browser dubbed Chrome in a move that’s garnering a lot of attention–because it conveniently fits with the Microsoft vs. Google plotline–but how much should businesses pay attention to this move?

First a quick recap (Techmeme), Google will launch the Chrome browser and it has some interesting bells and whistles, security features and raises questions about its role vs. IE and Firefox. As Nick Carr notes the big picture is that Google is adding a browser to upgrade capabilities across the board to make it more cloud friendly. Carr reckons that the applications are the message.

Dennis Howlett adds that no CXO (any C-level exec) is going to give Chrome all that much thought since it’s a beta and it’s unclear how Google’s browser fits in the enterprise. However, CXO types may want to pay a little more attention than Dennis’ recommended nano-second. Why? You’ll wind up supporting Chrome (probably indirectly)–along with all those other Google apps the search giant is sneaking into your enterprise. The upshot: CXOs may actually have to read a comic book about Chrome after a long weekend.

There has been a lot of talk on the Enterprise Irregular list and the consensus seems to be that Google will make a splash for two months or so and then developers will see what the catch is with Chrome. From there we’ll find out if Google’s Chrome browser is worth much.

In sum, the tech executive playbook is to hang back, download the browser, take it for a spin and monitor closely. After all, your employees will download Chrome and it’s just a matter of time before it gets attacked just like IE and Mozilla does daily. What will Google’s patching system look like? The Techmeme crowd hasn’t pondered that point yet. Bottom line you can’t afford to NOT pay attention to Chrome even if it’s insignificant to your business because it’s likely to be a security risk.

However, there is a bigger question here. How much do you want to rely on Google for your business? For smaller businesses, Google Apps and its collection of software in the cloud may be a no-brainer. As companies grow though the Google equation gets murkier. CapGemini sums up the view of Google you need to ponder.

In a post CapGemini writes:

Everyone has a rather strong opinion on the monopoly Microsoft has/ had on the desktop. Microsoft is/ was evil since it pushes Windows media player via windows, since it pushes Internet Explorer via Windows, leaving the desktop user no other chance than using these functionalities. Same goes for Microsoft’s Office suite, which doesn’t support ODF natively (it does since July 2007 via an add-in) and saves documents default in the proprietary .doc format.

Well that said, Microsoft may not be on the good guys side, however is there a good guys side at all? Fan boys now would jump on their chairs and would chant “Google, Google, Google!” however is Google really not evil as they stated? Google is evil, Google has a hidden agenda and that is not strange….

Fact is that Google already hosts your email, calendar, RSS reader, web history, documents, photos, blogs and much more free functionality. It is quite clear Google knows what you are doing since you do it with their applications. It is always questionable if you should want to outsource that many of your applications to one provider. However Google stated that it is not evil and therefore you should not mind it.

The point: Google is tying browsing, your personal history, your apps and your data together. And Google will couple these parts with Android, which is likely to link your PC and phone together. Is this playbook all that different than what Microsoft’s? Simply put, maybe everyone is evil.

Your business is increasingly being to cast its lot with one provider whether it be Microsoft, Oracle, SAP or someone else. You can add Google to that mix in the future. It’s all in the name of standardization and having one throat to choke. Sounds great, but portfolio management dictates that you want to be wary. And once you add up this healthy skepticism about Google’s business objectives you find it has a distinct disadvantage. Google is the devil you don’t know. Microsoft and your other app providers are known commodities. Bottom line: Technology execs shouldn’t get carried away with the Chrome chatter, but do pay attention. Google is still in the process of revealing itself and that’s valuable information going forward.

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Last week I highlighted some of the worst aspects of working in the information technology business in Five things that suck about working in IT. This week it’s time to turn the tables and look at five things that make it great to work in IT.

5. You’re the hero when you solve problems

When an employee is desperately trying to get a critical project plan finished under deadline but accidentally deletes the latest version of the file and then calls IT in a panic, an IT professional can swoop in and recover the file. Pow! Instant hero status. Some grateful employees will even bake you cookies, invite you to the finance department’s annual barbecue, or tell everyone in the company who will listen what a miracle worker you are. Those are the days when this job will make you feel like a king.

4. You get to play with cool stuff

Although most IT pros spend more time babysitting older technologies than they do implementing new ones — as I first noted in 10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT — you’ll still get to play with plenty of new stuff, too. Whether it’s deploying cool new laptops and smartphones for executives and senior managers or implementing the latest server and networking gear in the data center, it’s always fun to get new gear in the IT office, pop it out of the box and see what it can do. For the IT pros that really love tech, this part of the job is like being a kid that gets paid to play with the world’s newest toys.

3. You help make people more efficient

When you break it down, the IT department’s job is ultimately to maintain the highly-complex tools that help modern workers do their jobs — and to implement new tools that can make those jobs even more efficient. It’s all about streamlining business processes. There’s a tremendous satisfaction in helping workers take a process that used to take 2 hours and through a bit of software and automation magic turn it into a 15-minute task.

2. Your job is rarely dull or stagnant

There are some jobs in IT that can be dull and monotonous, such as running backups or low-level programming where you spend most of your time fixing bugs. But, those are definitely the exception and not the rule. For most of the jobs in IT, the products and the conventional wisdom it takes to manage them are changing so fast that IT pros have to constantly educate and re-educate themselves just to keep up — and keep their jobs. IT pros sometimes complain about having to do this continual self-education (often on their own time), but this is also part of what makes it great to work in IT. There is a natural excitement and energy in IT because the field is evolving so rapidly and there’s always something new to learn.

1. You get to be a revolutionary

From the continuing leaps in microprocessors to the arrival of Web-based applications to the coming spread of wireless broadband, technology remains a revolutionary force in business and in the lives of average citizens. IT professionals have the privilege of being able to serve as catalysts in the revolution, if they focus their efforts on using technology to improve the organization and the lives of its workers every day.

Another option that I use in Outlook 2007 is to click the Time Zones button when making an appointment and make the appointment in the time zone where the appointment will be. Then, Outlook will automatically adjust my calendar on my laptop as well as the synced version on my smartphone.

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With the launch of its long-hyped WiMax service XOHM scheduled to debut in September in Baltimore, on Thursday Sprint announced a set of location-based personalization features that will enhance the user experience of WiMax subscribers by allowing them to, for example, quickly look up restaurants, check traffic and weather, and find friends who are nearby, all based on automatic location sensing.

What’s interesting is that Sprint is not doing this the way cellular providers normally do it, which is to launch proprietary custom applications to lock in users. Sprint has promised that would make its WiMax network agnostic to devices and applications. And so far, it’s staying true to its word — although with a privacy asterisk.

With these location-based services, Sprint is launching with a Web-based portal that partners can write widgets for, based on Sprint’s WiMax API. Launch partners include:

• Google
• Yelp
• Autodesk
• NAVTEQ Traffic
• uLocate
• AccuWeather
• OpenWave Systems
• Topix
• Eventful

This will potentially work for a variety of WiMax devices, including:

• Laptops
• Ultramobile PCs (UMPCs)
• Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs)
• GPS navigation devices
• Portable media players
• WiMax-enabled phones

Intel has low-cost WiMax chips that will be embedded in laptops before the end of the year. Nokia has released a WiMax version of its N810 Internet Tablet. OQO will offer a WiMax option for its ultramobile PC. Motorola and others have also demoed a variety of forthcoming WiMax-powered devices.

Rick Robinson, vice president of XOHM Services, said “The XOHM mobile broadband experience will be largely location-centric. We’re creating a new dimension to online presence, making points of interest near your current location easy to identify and access. This ‘geobrowsing’ effect provides location context and will give XOHM members a richer personal broadband experience when they’re mobile.”

In the past, Sprint has also promised to offer these types of WiMax services in a way that preserves privacy by giving users control over how much of their information they choose to share or reveal to applications and vendors.  In the materials accompanying this announcement, Sprint stated, “XOHM will offer these location capabilities with a corresponding privacy policy to make sure XOHM members are informed about how XOHM will handle their data. ”

That does not sound as strong as their previous statements about users being able to control their privacy. It sounds more like offering a simple disclosure statement, which most users won’t read. Thus, users will need to hold Sprint’s feet to the fire on privacy.

Because Sprint is opening up its network to all devices and applications, it needs other ways to monetize the network beyond just the standard subscription revenue. That likely means they will take their users — all of whom they know a lot about — and try to monetize them by allowing and vendors and marketers to target specific user segments, based on geography, age, interests, etc.

With location-based services, Sprint now has another factor to add to the mix. This is where monetization can collide with privacy. The services, such as these geobrowsing options, can be super-useful, but users need to be aware of the fact that they are giving up some privacy in the process.

Will video games be coming to an enterprise near you? Forrester Research seems to think so as companies cook up new ways to train employees–especially those so-called millennials.

I can hear the laughter now. Video games? We’re about serious business, you’ll say. What’s the ROI you’ll ask? Video games aren’t serious–they are a productivity killer. I can’t even get my CFO to upgrade Windows 98 desktops!

But maybe we should hear Forrester out. As a confessed skeptic of this ‘millennials will change the world’ argument I couldn’t help but check out Forrester’s report. Whether you buy it is another matter entirely, but Forrester’s take isn’t that nuts. Like most predictions, however, Forrester is probably a few years early on the market acceptance front. Here’s the gist of the report, which was penned by TJ Keitt and Paul Jackson:

• A new category called ’serious gaming’ is emerging. Serious gaming uses games for business purposes. And (buzzword alert) “technology populism,” the greening of IT and the “emergence of millennials” will make serious gaming a reality. The technology populism term refers to employees bringing their personal technology to work (also known as consumerization a few weeks ago).
• Vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and traditional video game developers will be pitching your company the concept of games as business.
• It’s very early in the serious gaming movement. What to call serious games, the presentation, ROI and technology limits all need to be sorted out.
• However, some organizations–Cisco, the U.S. military, universities and health care outfits–are using serious games today so the concept isn’t total science fiction. Serious games are engaging and primarily used for learning simulations for workers–especially sales types.

Forrester notes:

Serious gaming is a specific activity — the presentation of a task that must be accomplished within a set of parameters — and has a defined time frame. It does not persistently exist for the sake of existing; the game boots, you solve the problem, and the game is over. There may be elements of collaboration and persistence, as seen in virtual worlds, and serious games may even reside inside large, virtual environments, but the task orientation of the activity is what sets it apart from its cousin technology.

A few examples from Forrester:

• Emergency responders are using games to work through scenarios in the event of a terrorist attack. The government is developing these business games and funding projects.
• Universities are playing around with them too. Thirty eight universities participated in an IBM pilot for its business process management game. I wonder if that one comes on the Wii?
• Cisco, Hilton Garden Inn and Johnson & Johnson are using these games to teach things like binary math, customer service and drug development, respectively.

Forrester aggregated a few examples in a handy graphic.

Will these games make it to your company? It’s possible as the enterprise gets on the collaboration bandwagon. Admittedly, I’m skeptical about some of the vendors and their chances selling into corporations. For instance, no CIO is going to buy a serious game from a traditional video game company. It’s just too hard to pitch to the CEO and CFO. However, Forrester notes that IBM and Microsoft are offering serious games bundled with collaboration tools. Big Blue and Microsoft are quite used to selling applications to you and even if you buy a game or two no CIO will get fired for doing so.

Next challenge: Figure out the ROI case. Good luck with that one. Forrester notes:

How do you prove their business worth and ROI? This is the hardest of the five questions facing serious games. For some games, such as advergames, it’s easy to see the link to ROI: For example, Burger King’s three Xbox 360 titles developed by Blitz Games Studios ranked among the top-selling Xbox games over the winter holidays in 2006 and were credited with the company’s 41% profit increase in its second quarter. However, such a 1 to 1 relationship between a game and a desired outcome is often hard to tease out in something as nebulous as diversity training. And for those deploying games, divining whether their target audience internalized the lesson instead of just becoming good at playing the game is paramount.

Simply put, these games are used for so-called soft skills that are hard to tie to measurable goals. An ROI isn’t impossible, but you’ll have to get creative.

Here’s the original article that this episode was based on:

Sanity check: 10 trends that will transform IT over the next five years

As CNET News.com editor in chief Dan Farber explains:

“CNET News reporters Declan McCullagh, Stephanie Condon, and Kara Tsuboi will be on the scene, covering the tech policies and positions of the presidential and vice presidential candidates. In addition, they will be roaming the convention floors, interviewing delegates, politicians, and pundits on tech-related issues such as Net neutrality, Internet taxation, and privacy.”

Over on CBSNews.com, there will be a daily Webcast to analyze the events from 9:00-10:00 PM Eastern, hosted by Katie Couric from the CBS Evening News. Katie and the rest of the CBS News political team will also be taking online questions submitted from viewers. Watch the short video clip below to hear Katie explain.

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The reality show America’s Toughest Jobs debuts on Monday. Contestants will be logging, oil drilling, building bridges, and bullfighting. All of those jobs are rough and flashy and that stuff makes for good television, but if you want to talk about the toughest jobs in America then I think IT deserves a place on the list.

I often tell people that working in IT is one of the toughest jobs in the world, and TechRepublic is here to make it a little easier for the 10 million IT pros on the planet. There’s often not a lot of sympathy for IT as a hard job because IT workers are typically well paid, and it is a desk job, after all. So, I’ve put together the following list of five things that can make working in IT tortuous at times.

See also: 10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT

5. You get a lot of fingers pointed at you

When error messages pop up and system outages occur, employees and managers quickly start pointing fingers at IT and the pressure is intense to get things fixed quickly to keep users from losing productivity. That’s part of the job and you have to always be prepared for it. In fact, some IT pros even get an adrenaline rush from this type of high-pressure stakes.

The problem is that IT pros hear loud and clear when things aren’t working, but they rarely get much appreciation during the other 99% of the time when systems are running smoothly.

4. People assume you’re an expert in all things tech

When you’re an IT worker, non-techies tend to assume that you know everything about all tech subjects. For example, if you’re a help desk technician you get questions about how the company’s Web site is built. And if you’re a Java developer you can expect to field questions about how to deal with spam and spyware on an employee’s machine.

There are obviously tactful ways to handle this, but many IT pros can’t help but get a little frustrated by this, or even feeling a little inadequate. Worse, because you’re a techie, a lot of your co-workers will come to you for advice on buying PCs, digital cameras, and TVs. Some will even ask you to fix their PC for free or help troubleshoot a problem with their cable modem.

3. You have to continually re-train, on your own dime

I think it’s fair to say that no profession on earth is changing faster than the IT field right now and that’s not likely to change any time soon. The pace of development and innovation in hardware and software products is staggering. As a result, the knowledge that it takes just to keep your current job is always growing and morphing, and IT pros have to take responsibility for their continuing education or risk having their skills and knowledge become obsolete within a few short years.

This is a constant struggle. The big challenge is that many companies don’t officially recognize this problem, and so IT pros have to use free resources like TechRepublic to stay current, or pay for training out of their own pockets. In the past, TechRepublic surveys have shown that over 50% of IT pros pay for their own training.

2. The hours are long and irregular

Lots of jobs in the knowledge economy require long hours, so it’s not unique that many IT professionals — from developers to administrators to systems integrators — have to work overtime on a regular basis. However, what does set IT apart is the scattered irregularity of those hours. Most IT workers are always on call, or are at least part of an on-call rotation, in case critical systems go down during off-hours.

In addition, many IT pros have tasks that they need to do when there aren’t as many users on the system. That means coming in early to run backup routines or staying late to update an application or patch a server after most of the users have logged off at the end of the day.

1. The job market is tumultuous and in transition

During the late 1990s, people flooded into IT, chasing the promise of $65K/year jobs that were going unfilled because of the lack of qualified candidates. IT professionals who were already in the field could hop jobs and get significant pay raises. IT pros were in demand. But, it didn’t last. The dot com implosion and the wrap up of the Y2K fixes meant that a lot of tech jobs disappeared.

Since then, the off-shore outsourcing phenomenon and the H1B visa issue have put further strain on the IT job market in the U.S. and abroad. Many IT professionals run the risk of building their skills, experiences, and their careers, only to have their jobs shipped overseas to save costs. That means IT professionals have to be particularly adept at managing their own careers in order to avoid being unemployed or underemployed.

For the flip side of this argument, tune in next week for  “Five things that make it great to work in IT.”

This episode is based on the following articles:

• 10 ethical issues raised by IT capabilities
• 10 ethical issues confronting IT managers

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When chip makers and computer companies designed low-cost netbooks they intended to market them in emerging nations, especially in schools. So it was a big surprise when they got a ton of orders from Americans, Europeans, and Japanese customers.

This has shown that there’s a large demand for low-cost computers in these established markets. Business travelers have jumped on netbooks, and so have home users who want to use these as second computers or basic home PCs for their kids.

Intel has recognized this demand and decided to jump in with both feet. On Tuesday at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel announced a new desktop motherboard — Intel Desktop Board D945GCLF2 — that will allow computer makers to build ‘nettops’ (desktops built mostly for using the Internet) with solid performance at very low prices.

“Small on size and big on potential, the best of 45nm technology is used to deliver a rich and full experience in a tiny, power-packed package,” said Tom Rampone, General Manager of Intel’s Channel Platforms Group. “Nettops represent a fundamental shift in system design and PC consumption. Over the next 20 years we will see nettops emerge as a powerful and significant force in computing.”

Intel expects netbooks and nettops with its Atom processor to outsell systems with its standard desktop and laptop processors within 2-4 years.
Here are the features and specs of the Intel Desktop Board D945GCLF2:

• Low-power dual-core Intel Atom processor
• 533 MHz system bus
• Intel 945GC Express chipset
• Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 chipset
• 1 DIMM slot for up to 2 GB DDR SDRAM
• Integrated 10/100/1GB Ethernet
• Integrated six channel audio
• Can support up to 8 on-board USB 2.0 ports
• One PCI expansion slot
• Two SATA ports
• IDE connector with support for two drives

The boards will be available in September and Intel has a dozen computer manufacturers who are signed up to build systems based on the D945GCLF2. Intel didn’t talk about the potential street price of these systems, but once you look at the price of the netbooks and realize that you’re removing the LCD screen, I think it’s clear that we’re looking at under $200 for the low-end nettops.

Here come the thin clients

These low-cost motherboards based on the Atom processor won’t only result in nettops. Intel also expects computer makers to use these boards to build point-of-sale (POS) systems, kiosks, and thin clients, for example.

For IT, this could be the tipping point that makes thin clients a lot more attractive in the enterprise. There were already a lot of factors driving IT toward thin clients, including:

• Desktop virtualization
• Increase in Web-based applications
• High-bandwidth LAN and WAN connections
• Compliance and data security concerns

The big drawback to thin clients has been cost. Many thin clients systems cost as much and sometimes even more than standard business-class desktop machines, often $800 and up. This has been a mental barrier for many IT leaders who couldn’t justify purchasing machines with far less functionality for the same price.

Atom-based ‘thin-clients’ could have plenty of power to run apps locally, if needed, but could generally be restricted with software and policies to only act as a thin client that connects to the user’s software image in the data center. At $200 per user, and a centralized infrastructure that’s much easier to manage, that would be a big cost-saver that also reduces complexity for IT.

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Now that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has retired from his full-time job at Microsoft in order to devote his energy to the Gates Foundation, other IT leaders would like to step into the void as the technology industry’s leading diplomat to the world. Intel is nominating its chairman, Craig Barrett, for the post.

At the opening keynote for the Intel Developer Forum 2008 in San Francisco on Tuesday, Intel introduced Barrett as “the IT industry’s ambassador” and highlighted the fact that Barrett will visit 30 countries this year, meet with various heads of state, and chair a United Nations task force on technology in the developing world.

Intel’s Craig Barrett introduces Nigerian students to the Classmate PC. 

I’m not sure if Gates, who remains chairman of the board at Microsoft and is still spending 20% of his time on Microsoft-related work, is ready to give up his post as the IT industry’s de facto leader. I suspect that we’ll still see plenty of Gates as a keynote speaker at events and that he won’t be able to avoid giving reporters his commentary on how things are unfolding in the technology world.

Nevertheless, Intel’s Barrett would be an interesting replacement if Gates does truly fade into the backgound. While Gates has always been user-centric and his vision has been focused on the things users can do with technology, Barrett is more focused on how technology can improve and transform society.

“Technology is a tool to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges related to health care, education, economic development and the environment,” said Barrett. “No nations or individuals are untouched by these issues.”

Barrett is also not afraid to confront politicians publicly, while Gates has tended to deal with politicians and leaders more privately. For example, in his IDF keynote on Tuesday, Barrett launched several criticisms at the U.S. government and its policies:

• He upbraided the U.S. for not doing enough with research and development tax credits. “R&D is how you move forward in the world’s economic system,” said Barrett.
• He decried the K-12 educational system in the U.S. and put the blame not on funding but on not doing enough to hire and certify top-notch teachers.
• He criticized the U.S. for not allowing doctors to be paid when they treat patients over the phone (or other electronic systems) because those policies are holding back developments in electronic medicine.

For more on Barrett’s advice for U.S. political leaders, see IDF Opening Keynote: Are you listening, Washington? from Sam Diaz over at ZDNet.

Barrett also used his IDF keynote to launch Intel’s Inspire-Empower Challenge, a contest to develop the best technology solutions in four areas where there are critical global challenges: health care, economic development, education, and the environment. Intel will award $100,000 in seed funding to the winning project in each of the four categories. The top criteria for the winners will be innovation and sustainability.