CIO Essentials: MS licensing, Tesco CIO and online shopping

Ever wondered what CIOs are reading on silicon.com? Our CIO Essentials feature puts you in the picture. Each week a leading IT chief picks his or her top stories from the past seven days and explains why they matter.

This week we hear from Colin Cobain, group IT director for Tesco, who is stepping down from his role at the supermarket giant at the end of this month.

Shoppers to spend £40bn online
After all the hype, the online world seems finally to be coming of age. Let's hope we don't get the same mass hysteria about the end of bricks and mortar shops as last time.

Agenda Setters 2007 - Top 20

Find out who made it into silicon.com's Agenda Setters top 20 by clicking the links below…

1. Mark Zuckerberg
2. Steve Jobs
3. Eric Schmidt
4. John Chambers
5. Ashley Highfield
6. Nicholas Negroponte
7. Niklas Zennström
8. Diane Greene
9. Jonathan Ive
10.Viviane Reding
11.Paul Coby
12.Marc Benioff
13.Emily Bell
14.Larry Ellison
15.Jeff Bezos
16.Ben Verwaayen
17.Nandan Nilekani
18.David Yu
19.Satoru Iwata
20.Mark Hurd

Torex Retail looks to the future
A sad example of what can happen if significant acquisition isn't matched with consolidation. We use their scheduler in the UK but were put off them for our 'Operating Model' because of their problems - maybe time to review?

BAA's RFID trial prepares for takeoff
It's good to see this great technology being trialled in another area - let's hope it can reduce the pain of lost bags. There's a big prize for someone who can match up the potential this offers to a solution.

Tesco IT chief steps down
It'll be a wrench to leave after nearly seven years but it's time to find a new challenge after getting the US operation up and running. I'm looking forward to spending a bit of time with the family and looking at what to do next.

Microsoft licensing value under scrutiny
If they were half as good in the commercial space as they are in the consumer space, Microsoft would be incredible. They just don't seem to understand how far away from reality for businesses with low margins they are - maybe after they start losing out to the likes of Google Apps they'll change tack.

If you are a UK-based IT director or CIO and would like to take part in the CIO Essentials series by choosing your top five stories of the week, send us an email here at silicon.com.