Intel CEO: Convergence still key to IT

The computing, communications and content industries are coming together into one, Barrett said during a keynote speech Tuesday at the OracleWorld conference here.

As this convergence gets underway, companies will find content being scaled up and down for use in the digital home, in enterprise computing and in mobile devices, said the CEO of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel.

Drumming out the message that "IT matters," the Intel chief urged companies to take advantage of this and other latest technology to help them put their business models into action.

These changes come at a time when the IT industry is struggling to emerge from a weak economic climate and to get over a sharp pullback in information technology spending by corporate America and overseas players.

"As companies look to plan ahead, there are a couple of important things they need to look for," Barrett said.

Not only should they take convergence into account, but they should also consider open-source architectures or standards, which would allow technology to interact, he said.

During his hour-long presentation, Barrett was joined by technology executives and managers from Ford Motor, online personalized music software and services company MusicMatch, and other companies.

Ford said it was able to build its centennial signature car, the Ford GT, in the short span of 22 months with the help of parallel computing and massive exchanges of data.

"The concurrent engineering that was talked about in the 1980s is happening today," Marv Adams, Ford's chief technology officer, said.