Milholland helped EDS refocus its energies and rev up its speed of delivery, the magazine said. Rather than operate as a discrete group on specific technologies or solutions, EDS' 50,000 information systems engineers are spread throughout the enterprise, helping develop new Web-enabled knowledge and data management services for internal and external use. As chief technology officer, Milholland will establish company policies and architecture regarding ways to incorporate technological innovations in EDS' products and services. People talk about technology modernization and computing in a couple of different ways, usually in their external products and services. And thus you'll see in many companies a chief technology officer whose task is to make sure those products and services in fact contain modern technology.
Companies choose many different ways to organize the CTO role to make it happen.
The CTO's job is to ensure we have the right technology and that we are using it the right way in our services. In that sense, the CTO encourages innovation in our services, and has oversight over applied research and development in our labs and with our key suppliers. We're pushing innovation. Part of my task is to foster an environment of innovation that can come to the fore and has real business value. I don't think so.