Just curious.

[YaSO]

Just curious; when I check various MBA schools, if not most, many schools have a program related to IT. MBA specialization Information Technology, something like that. Also big companies have people that have the title CIO, Chief Information Officer. From what I understand, they work with executives to drive the company forward and their focus is not so much technology. Because of the proliferation of the internet, we often here names of various companies' CIOs along with CFO, COO, etc. Is CIO or related position considered to be a Business Career? Or is it just another IT job?

[philipwhiteold]

The CIO is going to be managing the IT side of a company. Since they do a fair share of managing it is a business career however their backgrounds usually come from the IT field. A computer science or information systems degree followed by a MBA would be a good start if this was your carrer goal.

If you want to stay more toward programming rather than management then I would suggest a master in CS or IS instead of a MBA.

[petertdavis]

Originally posted by philipwhite@Aug 9 2003, 12:42 PM
The CIO is going to be managing the IT side of a company. Since they do a fair share of managing it is a business career however their backgrounds usually come from the IT field. A computer science or information systems degree followed by a MBA would be a good start if this was your carrer goal.

If you want to stay more toward programming rather than management then I would suggest a master in CS or IS instead of a MBA.
Dunno, though, if he's looking for a career in management it might just be a waste of time to get an IS digree. Sloan might be a good place to go, sounds like to me from what you're asking.

[YaSO]

From what I understand, Sloan (IT) program is for people who manage IT department of a big corporation in New York. Kind of stuff you do in IT are related to ... banking, financing, and maybe telecom (verizon, etc.) in New York. It's IT; you use computers, Windows, Unix, Linux, AS400, and so forth, but it's very different from IT in places like Silicon Valley. It's more like ... an extension of business, real business.

I wonder what kind of education managers in software development companies (like Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft, Redhat, etc.) typically get.