Re: So ...
The day *has* come, as you'll see elsewhere on the Reg I chari our CTO round tables and in *most* firms it is seen either as the centre or at least at the centre.
Some aren't and sadly our NDA with them prevents me sharing the names, but you can work it out by reading the financial pages for firems issuing profit warnings...
However the big firms are finding it very very hard to innovate.
Innovation doesn't just require tech clevernes (though you won't actually deliver without it), but a deep insight into how the firm works. That's business processes, knowing the limits of the existing core tech infrastrucutre and the jewels buried in its piles of data. *and what the customer will pay you for*
You don't get that in your first week or first year, maybe you never get it.at all, but if you treat IT like mushrooms (in the dark, fed on ship and with a short life expectancy) you'll get Java front ends to Oracle and nothing else at all.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
