Game-changing IT delivery models, such as cloud computing, are transforming the technology landscape ― and therefore changing the way large organizations do business. That was the major theme of Fujitsu Forum 2011, the global ICT company’s annual event held in Munich in November.

Addressing the conference’s 10,000 delegates, Rolf Schwirz, CEO of Fujitsu Technology Solutions, pointed to the enormous potential of cloud to transform business and society ― and stressed that it is not a new computing paradigm, but simply a new way of delivering existing IT capability via the Internet. “Its most important attribute is that it’s a services business,” he said. As a result, contracts between suppliers and their customers will hinge on the robustness and quality of the services delivered. “This is the biggest change happening in the IT industry,” he added.

Schwirz highlighted how conversations with CIOs are now shifting away from technology. “CIOs will no longer think only about the technology stack ― they will think about which services can support the core business of their companies in the best way,” he said. This, he argued, will lead to cultural changes in most organizations.

Furthermore, there is strong demand for the cost-efficiency and flexibility resulting from cloud’s inherent elasticity, said Schwirz. “We see that customers want it, and they want it now. They want a pay-as-you-go model; they are tired of the old model [of up-front investment].”

Schwirz confirmed that Fujitsu will maintain a deep commitment to hardware. But he also stated that the company has set a global target of achieving 30% of its sales from cloud services by 2015.

Also keynoting, Rod Vawdrey, president of Fujitsu’s Global Business Group, focused on how cloud is reshaping the IT landscape. “It is changing the way we conduct business almost as dramatically as social media is changing the way people communicate,” he told delegates. “And undoubtedly one of the fundamental forces driving this is the affordability of technology.” (See also our one-on-one interview with Rod Vawdrey.)

Sense of excitement

As host of the event’s “CTO Visionary Session,” Dr. Joseph Reger, CTO of Fujitsu Technology Solutions, posed the question, “Is IT still exciting?” and acknowledged industry concerns that the cloud-driven standardization of IT products and services may lead to a certain homogenization of technology.

He was joined on stage by Stephen Pawlowski, senior fellow and CTO for the Datacenter and Connected Systems Group at Intel, who argued that we are actually in one of the most exciting periods in IT’s history. In particular, Pawlowski singled out the fields of energy efficiency and the explosion of data volumes. “Big data presents a huge opportunity for companies to innovate ― especially at the edge where there will be so much data coming in off [the growing number of connected] devices,” he said.

Chiseki Sagawa, president of Fujitsu’s Platform Strategic Planning Unit, joined Reger on stage to outline Fujitsu’s plans to play a bigger role in the global software market. These include launching a SaaS marketplace, the Business Solutions Store ― a trusted ecosystem of both Fujitsu and partner software.

Changing the world

The power of IT to create a better world was another major theme of Fujitsu Forum. Satoru Hayashi, executive vice chairman of the board at Fujitsu Technology Solutions, gave an account of how Fujitsu had responded to the earthquake and tsunami that hit north-eastern Japan in March 2011. As well as managing to keep all its Japanese data centers running, Fujitsu was able to provide free cloud services to help organizations in the search for missing people.

Hayashi also outlined how Fujitsu’s vision of a human-centric intelligent society, in which ubiquitous connected devices gather data that can be analyzed and used to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, is supporting the Japanese government in areas such as healthcare and transportation.

In her guest keynote speech, Professor Susan Greenfield, a leading neuroscientist, also pointed out how IT is changing society. She explained how, uniquely among animals, the human brain quickly adapts itself to new environments, and argued that constant IT usage is altering the way people think ― not always for the better.

She defined this as “mind change” and stated her belief that it poses a challenge to humanity on a similar scale to climate change ― with the crucial difference that the latter is about damage limitation, whereas the former can actually help people to fulfill their potential, when properly understood.

In the closing keynote speech, former world chess champion turned entrepreneur Garry Kasparov also highlighted the uniqueness of the human mind when compared to computers. He advised the audience on effective decision-making by stressing that ― in chess as in business ― to achieve their goals, individuals must play to their own strengths.

“[Human] decision-making is as unique as fingerprints or DNA,” he said. “What is important is that you know exactly where you are strong and where you are weak, and then try to create an environment where your strengths will be on display.”

He also lamented what he saw as a lack of commitment to projects that bring about a step-change in business and society, despite their associated high risk ― undertakings such as the creation of the Internet and the US moon landings. “We need to reshape the future with breakthrough innovations that create value,” he said. “By being willing to take risks, we can build a better future.”

• Click here for videos of all the Fujitsu Forum 2011 sessions.

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