Silicon.com heralds top 50 IT Agenda Setters of 2000

Silicon.com's Agenda Setter 2000 poll makes one thing clear - we live in revolutionary times.

Just as the PC had a huge impact on the last two decades, so developments such as the Internet, mobile telephony and content geared especially for broadband delivery and media-savvy customers will affect the next ten years.

The choices of our AS2000 panellists throw up several anomalies. It is an understatement to say Bill Gates (at number 12) remains influential. However, his replacement as CEO, Steve Ballmer (4) and Michael Dell (5) are the only two in the Top Ten who carry the torch for the traditional IT business. (And even then, Dell is there as an entrepreneur who has revolutionised the selling of PCs.)

Instead, a new type of business has evolved. Vodafone AirTouch's Chris Gent (1) and AOL's Steve Case (2) were clearly ahead in the top two positions.

Gent was heralded as the man with the foresight to build his company into a global giant, now only smaller than Microsoft and Cisco as a player in high-tech. In our panel discussion he was described as "a man with big ideas, big vision and balls". Now the challenge is to fulfil the promise of an integrated global network and win third generation licences in each of its territories.

Case also received praise as a visionary. AOL's strongest citadel is still North America, but our AS2000 experts still rate him as a power-broker in Europe.

Richard Sykes, chairman of sourcing consultancy Morgan Chambers and former ICI CIO, calls blending the old and new media worlds through the Time Warner merger "incredibly risky", but bets on him pulling it off. Other deals are now expected.

Also figuring prominently are business people, politicians and others who are using technology to overhaul the way business and society run. Examples include Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos (6), General Electric's Jack Welch (9), Richard Branson (11) and Stelios Haji-Ioannou (10) of easyJet and easyEverything fame.

In a strange twist, the top politician isn't from the EU (Innovation Commissioner Erkki Liikanen (40) just about makes it in), Tony Blair (13) or even the future President of the US (21). Instead it's Chinese premier Jiang Zemin (8) - his economy is set to boom, and our panellists predict a worldwide knock-on effect.

Others with influence but no political office or CEO moniker, include Alan Greenspan (14) and Mary Meeker (19), the Wall Street analyst at Morgan Stanley who moves markets - or at least the stocks she tips or drops.

In fact Meeker heads the women who account for just five of the 50 places - and they say high-tech is one of the most meritocratic of industries.

And spare a thought for those who didn't make it (http://www.silicon.com/a36322 ) including Sir Peter Bonfield. Although an original nominee, he didn't make it onto the final 50, unlike contemporaries such as AT&T's Michael Armstrong (46), Deutsche Telekom's Ron Somner (29), MCI WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers (26) and Telefonica's Juan Villalonga (34). Our panellists said he was reactionary rather than visionary.

The CEO of BT not on a list won by the boss of another UK-based telco? Must be revolutionary times.

Agenda Setters 2000 are the top 50 business leaders and technologists from the computer software and hardware industries, fixed and mobile communications, and dot-com successes, as well as the world leaders, financial heavyweights and entrepreneurs who all wield power and influence.

See http://www.silicon.com/agendasetters2000 for all the Agenda Setter 2000 results.