Topic: Business

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Dennis Bakke, the co-Founder and former CEO of energy producer AES. With 40,000 employees and $8 billion in revenue, he believes everyone can still have fun at work. Dennis is also the author of "Joy at Work -- A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job." [Tech Nation audio from IT Conversations]

How is the IT Budget of companies going to be spent? What's hot and what's not right now among IT companies? Are there too many IT vendors? How many of them will survive for the next five years? How is opensource software affecting IT vendors? The pundit panel with experts from some of the top market research organisations answer these questions and take a look at where the IT industry is heading in the next few years. [Software 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

"95% of the shows fail!" states Mark Cuban. Of course, he would know best - he's responsible for pioneering streaming media with Broadcast.com which he sold to Yahoo! for millions of dollars. He's also the man behind the success of the Dallas Mavericks. And now he's trying to do the same with HDNet: bring high definition programming to your living room. Host Larry Magid talks to Cuban about everything from piracy to the special makeup required for HDTV. [Larry's World audio from IT Conversations]

Most IT buyers would agree that software vendor behavior has improved over the past few years. Since the recession when businesses dramatically slashed IT budgets, software companies have had little choice but to improve customer relations and product quality in order to remain competitive. But this panel of CIOs says there is still much room for improvement in areas such as consolidation, pricing, quality and security. [Software 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

Shai Agassi explains SAP's approach to Service Oriented Architecture and its own offering, Enterprise Services Architecture. More than just another three letter acronym, ESA combines SAO with semantic standards to create a complete solution for clients. Agassi outlines SAP's beliefs about the changing marketplace, which focus on the specific needs of niche markets by creating a single unified platform upon which individualized solutions can be built.

Kurt Huang is founder and vice-president of products at micropayment company BitPass.com. He discusses the growing demand among digital content providers to efficiently monetize their online content offerings like podcasts and other downloadable content. He talks about his coming new service called "BitPass Unplugged" that will allow podcasters, ranging from hobbyists to mainstream media organizations, to generate revenue from podcast content offerings. [Web Talk audio on IT Conversations]

Although technology is still changing everything, we've come to view it as on a par with indoor plumbing. This suggests the industry is mature and unlikely to produce another upswing to match that of the 90s. Add to this the growing demands of globalization, and you could believe it was time to get out of the technology business completely. Roger McNamee's talk at this year's Software 2005 Conference should give you the confidence to keep going. He examines the new rules that need to be learned and followed in this era of the 'new normal' and shows how the problems faced both by companies and technology staff can be turned into golden opportunities. [Software 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

How do you make a laptop that sells for less than $100 in order to sell to developing countries? Should businesses be considering the developing world as markets or as areas in need of charity? This lively panel discussion covers numerous technological solutions to the global digital divide from the perspectives of business, education and the international development community. [Software 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

Companies are still spending up to 70% of their IT budgets on infrastructure and application maintenance, which is severely impacting their ability to support new business opportunities. HP is addressing this imbalance by investing in enterprise software innovations. Innovations such as open source software, web services and utility computing are changing the competitive landscape, reducing operational costs and providing a new dimension of opportunities that have previously been inaccessible. Shane Robison, Chief Strategist for HP, shares his company's views on the enterprise software landscape and what they are doing to support the adaptive and real-time enterprise. [Software 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Harry Dent, the author of "The Next Great Bubble Boom." He sees another boom coming, and he says that technology and the Baby Boomers are behind it!