"CIO is no longer the same level of position," says Phil Schneidermeyer, CIO practice leader for executive recruiting company Highland Partners. "Companies are stepping back and saying the job isn't that big anyway. We're making less investment in IT. We have a smaller headcount. We're not going global and doing any mergers. We're done with ERPERP. We're sending it all offshore. Therefore we don't need the caliber of CIO we may have had in the past." Alles zu ERP auf CIO.de

Whatever the reasons for the disrespect the CIO has become heir to (and there are some good ones, including multimillion-dollar implementations that didn't deliver and Y2K remediations that failed to impress), there's no question that in some quarters the critical role of the corporate CIO as commander in chief of technology-driven business opportunity is in jeopardy.

As it now stands, Brownell (who was recently promoted to COO), says, "Companies no longer view IT as a profession. It's a no-win situation." And if things don't change, the list of potential losers is long: CIOs, their users and staffs, their companies, and possibly the future of American IT.

From Back-Room to Boardroom...and Back?

In the early 1970s, IS gave way to IT, and data processing managers were plucked from the technology closet. The corporate CIO was born.

"When information technology was a new innovation, it was an exclusive little game," says Sheleen Quish, global CIO and vice president of corporate marketing of packaging manufacturer U.S. Can. "CIOs became keepers of the treasure chest."