-Stacy J Smith, CIO-Intel                                                                                         

Stacy J Smith is vice-president of Finance and Enterprise Services, and chief information officer of Intel Corporation. In this role, he is jointly responsible for leading Intel's global Information Services and Technology Group (ISTG). The ISTG's mission is to deliver critical information capabilities needed to keep Intel running and meet its growth requirements. It provides business applications, productivity solutions, voice and data networking, data center operations, and custom information solutions to more than 75,000 Intel employees spread across 50 countries. ISTG also provides scientific computing capabilities for more than 17,000 Intel engineers worldwide, and supports global manufacturing operations. In this exclusive interview to Srikanth G of Dataquest,  Smith talks in depth about the IT engine powering the behemoth.

What is the role of CIOs and CTOs at Intel?
At Intel the CIOs manage a global team of more than 9,500 people in more than 27 countries, to deliver critical information solutions needed to keep Intel running and growing. In 2005 we deployed 37,000 additional laptops making 80% of our workforce mobile, and installed 325 wireless access points for a total of 4,685 worldwide, in more than 220 buildings.

We also play a key role in testing and giving feed back on the needs of the enterprise to our platform groups, to help improve product design. Our goal is to become one of Intel's core competitive capabilities by delivering outstanding business value from the industry's best information solutions.  Our CTOs, on the other hand, are part of our platform groups and are responsible for evaluating  our platform technologies for external markets.

What will you say about IT inside Intel?
Intel is a global company and, keeping in line with this, Intel's IT is a global asset. In 2005 we deployed solutions for more than 100,000 employees across 124 sites in more than 50 countries and regions, as well as a supply chain management involving more than 2,200 suppliers and 300,000 direct customers globally.  Solutions ranged from Wi-Max trials in our assembly and test sites in Asia to migrating one of our largest legacy ERP systems, order management, to Intel Itanium based servers. The move consolidated 44 servers to 15, increased performance, and significantly reduced our TCO. All of our solutions aim to focus on improving our responsiveness to Intel's business needs and increasing employee productivity.

Does Intel have an operational model whereby CIOs from facilities across the world report to you centrally?
Intel has a hybrid management structure; a combination of central and geo based teams that are organized by function and location. They all eventually report into the CIOs.

What would be Intel's key focus areas for IT during 2006?
Intel will continue to develop and deploy technologies in line with the platformization strategy. Intel believes that the integrated platform approach best provides end-users with the features, functions and capabilities they require-delivering far more value than the sum of the individual parts.  A platform is an integrated set of proven technologies designed and tested together to provide people and businesses with improved communications and computing capabilities to meet their specific needs. The technologies include things such as processors, chipsets, networking silicon and software. Intel's first platform introduction was in 2003 with Intel Centrino  mobile technology.

A key part of Intel's platform strategy involves the development of several technologies that improve processor efficiency and allow computer users to take advantage of multi-tasking, security, reliability, manageability, and wireless computing capabilities. Understanding how people actually use technology and then driving the power of Moore's Law to deliver increased capabilities means end-users-whether at home, work or elsewhere-will derive greater benefits and increased usefulness from technology. Multi-core processors-with their workload flexibility and performance headroom-will also play a central role in Intel's platform strategy by enabling increased capabilities and the power for end-users to do more with their computers.

How is Intel managing the mobile enterprise? Since Intel has been strongly advocating WLAN, how important is Wi-Fi for Intel's internal functions?
Intel is working on many fronts to accelerate the availability and awareness of broadband wireless Internet access, be it Wi-Fi or WiMAX to provide high-speed, last-mile broadband connectivity to homes and businesses and for mobile wireless networks. Today, mobility is a part of the daily work practice at Intel. More than 80% of our workforce is equipped with laptops, a significant increase from 66% in 2003. More than 90% of Intel buildings are unwired. We believe that mobility is a key part of the future for a productive and profitable organization. We have also demonstrated capital expenditure savings of over 40%.

As a CIO, what according to you will be the IT trends to watch for in 2006? 
I have a couple of thoughts on this. We'll see more and more CEOs and CFOs recognizing that IT departments are not cost centres. They can be strategic business tools that can generate business value for the organization (last year Intel IT delivered $1.7 bn in business value). We will continue to see how the mobility revolution is transforming the enterprise as more and more companies embrace technology to improve efficiency. Lastly, we will see a ramp up in the digital office where platform technologies, software and services will propel new usage models for large and small businesses that will increase their agility, connectivity and protection. I see four business user models: seamless collaboration, embedded IT, information assistance and pervasive connectivity.

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