Delivering the keynote address at IT World '98 Comdex India on `business without obstacles', Mittal said corporates needed to make vital decisions with regard to their business ecosystems. Compaq, he said, had already embraced this concept.

Business ecosystems will put new demands on IT products, technologies and services, he added. Customer-supply chain, knowledge based distribution systems, industry value chains and intelligent cities will comprise the sustainable business ecosystems where customer service, local retailer, channels, financing arms, manufacturer, shopping service and the advertiser will be internetworked.

The main personal applications thus emerging will include IP TV, voice over the Net, distance learning and training, desktop video conferencing, even medical imaging and internet gaming. Forbusinesses, it will be the high-performance technical computing, enterprise applications, mail and messaging, internet and E-Commerce and database and DSS.

Listing the main trends in the IT industry, the Compaq MD said the information utility was witnessing a shift towards the internet, personal productivity towards ubiquitous computing, commercial shift to real business process engineering that encompassed more than downsizing and a technical shift towards computational science methods to stimulate real world processes.

The technical shift will also have to take into account replacement of legacy systems with scalable servers or systems, the co-existence of Unix and NT platforms and inter-operability.

"What keeps chief executive officers awake at night is how do I predict what is going to happen; how can I keep pace with the change; will today's investments remain protected in the future and if my IT strategy is in line with how business will be done," Mittal said.

The corporates' main requirementsfrom IT were improved customer service and responsiveness, to reach new markets and buyers, fewer errors and improved customer satisfaction, achieve breakthroughs in time-to-market, reduce costs and vastly improved operations.

The chief information officers had to demonstrate IT business value, provide high service levels, allow secured access to information anywhere, rapidly deploy applications globally, provide skills and support for critical technologies and create a flexible, scalable IT infrastructure.