Leader: 'Changing of the guard' for the 2006 Agenda Setters

A list of the top names in tech - without Bill Gates? Or Steve Ballmer?

Believe it or not, it has happened.

The winner of silicon.com's seventh annual Agenda Setters poll of the top 50 individuals in the tech industry is from Microsoft - the first time a Redmond exec has appeared in the number 1 slot.

But the honour goes to a slightly less familiar name: Ray Ozzie, the man who will lead Microsoft into the post-Gates era, a time when the company's dominance will be challenged by the new wave of online software services.

It's a changing of the guard with Microsoft's Craig Mundie in at number 24 but neither Gates nor Ballmer appearing on the list - another first for Agenda Setters.

The old guard has been overtaken by the new at other tech stalwarts too. Dell CEO Kevin Rollins (45) replaces frequent Agenda Setter Michael Dell and Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz (46) takes Scott McNealy's spot. And Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce at number 30, earned a place for championing software as a service, while Larry Ellison from traditional database and business apps company Oracle is absent.

Look down the list at number 2, though, and you won't see a Silicon Valley name new or old - or any name. The 'next generation' was chosen by the Agenda Setters panel of industry experts because they believe the young people now in school or entering the workforce - who are "more networked", "more open" and even "more fickle" than those that have come before - will reshape the tech industry and even corporate IT.

One surprise Agenda Setter already shaping corporate IT is BP VP Jim Ginsburgh (17), who was chosen for his ground-breaking scheme of giving employees an allowance in exchange for not using the company's IT support. So far the programme is working well and the panel believes there will be many such schemes to come.

Rupert Murdoch is a standout on the list at number 4 - not only is it a high placing but the News Corp chief is the only person to appear on every Agenda Setters list since its inception in 2000. Murdoch won praise for 'getting' the internet and having the foresight to embrace social networking with the purchase of MySpace.

Big media hasn't crushed the resistance online, though - upstarts are still setting the agenda in a big way. OhMyNews.com founder and CEO Oh Yeon-Ho comes in a few notches below Murdoch at 16 for creating a site that allows citizens to become journalists and thus spawning the citizen journalism movement which is forcing traditional media outlets to rethink the question 'what is a journalist?'. Read more about the tensions between new and old media here.

Other trends revealed by the Agenda Setters poll include the emergence of Asian tech companies on the global stage. Agenda Setters here include Alibaba.com CEO Jack Ma (11); Huawei Technologies CEO Ren Zhengfei (25) - one spot above rival Cisco CEO John Chambers; and Indian outsourcing leaders S Ramadorai, CEO at TCS, (22) and Nandan Nilekani, CEO at Infosys, (40). All get the nod for turning homegrown Chinese or Indian companies into global players. Read more about Asia going global here.

In the communications space, you'll notice many of the usual suspects from the mobile operators and telcos were not included. Instead, the panel decided the innovation was coming from the likes of Carphone Warehouse CEO Charles Dunstone (38) - for starting the free broadband wars - and BSkyB chief James Murdoch (21) - for transforming Sky from a pay TV company into a telecoms company with a tech platform. Read more about the telecoms trends here.

It's not quite our 10th anniversary but given the Agenda Setters poll turns seven this year, silicon.com editor Tony Hallett looks back at the major trends and highlights of Agenda Setters past - read more in this Q&A.

And finally we've rounded up 10 facts about Agenda Setters that you can read here.

For the full list of 2006 Agenda Setters, extended analysis and biographies, plus details on the experts who chose the winners, see www.siliconagendasetters.com.

Our longest running annual project holds the potential to surprise, enlighten and encourage debate - and this year is no different. Perhaps the most hopeful message to take away is that despite a maturing market, innovation and new ideas continue to thrive in tech - we wouldn't have it any other way.