Interview: S. “Soma” Somasegar--Corporate Vice President, Developer Division, Microsoft – Part 2

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In Part 1 (seen here in CIM on Tuesday April 4th), we begin our Q&A with Soma and profile his background. Soma also discusses his major current challenges and how he is solving them.

Here is Part 2 of the Q&A series with Soma where he discusses the major issues facing the IT industry and businesses.

I encourage you to make comments here or send me an e-mail at sibaraki@cips.ca.

Discussion Part 2:

Q: What are the five biggest issues facing the IT industry in 2006, and in 2007? How can they be addressed?

A: Issue 1) Compliance and regulation - with things like Sarbanes-Oxley in the US and so on, compliance and regulation are hugely important to the success of an IT organization.

Solution: here is where we can help customers manage process complexity and provide them with tools that make process invisible yet ever present.

Issue 2) Integration - the need to tie disparate systems and architectures together

Solution: Moving from best of breed tools to fully integrated systems.

Issue 3) How to deal with distributed development - managing people across multiple geographies.

Solution: This goes to our earlier discussion on collaboration. If we can enable people to collaborate more effectively, we can help customers better manage distributed development scenarios.

Issue 4) Developing customer experiences that improve customer satisfaction driving business growth

Solution: providing customers with the right platform and tools and guidance that enable them to place user experience at the forefront of their software development process.

Issue 5) Driving software initiatives that provide tangible ROI

Solution: empowering customers to make software the backbone of their business…by executing on the solutions to all of the above, we can help customers get there.

Q: What are the five biggest issues facing corporations today and what are your recommendations for meeting these challenges?

A: 1) Globalization - Take advantage of talent around the globe. The customer is truly a worldwide customer and being able to work with talent around the world that is truly representative of the worldwide customer base is critical to business success.

2) Communities - Customers interact with each other via online communities. Word-of-mouth can break or make a product. Communities provide instant feedback and can generate a viral effect - both positive and negative.

3) User Experience - it is not about a good box or a pretty appearance. It is about a great end-to-end experience whether the customer is buying a soda or a car. Think of the entire experience your customers go through from start to end.

4) Data Explosion - With information about customer tastes, usage patterns and the like, companies need to mine the data and extract business intelligence to make faster and smarter decisions.

5) Speed - Companies that react the fastest to customer needs will win. Companies that develop products fast, that respond to employee problems fast, that respond to changing trends fast will win. Software can help in a big way.

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Thank you Soma for your insights in Part 2 of this series. I'm waiting to see your views on IT trends, AJAX/ATLAS, and more for Part 3.

We at CIM invite you to make your comments and suggestions. It's all about collaboration and feedback and we appreciate seeing your views here!

Cheers,
Stephen Ibaraki