Forging alliances and looking offshore for development talent Mike Sayers, the first CTO for London-based Reuters, helped develop the company’s open-systems philosophy last year. He answered the call of financial services clients for lower total cost of ownership for Reuters’ information and technology products. To achieve this, Sayers forged innovative alliances with Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Red Hat to incorporate Linux into Reuters’ offerings. He also reevaluated Reuters’ local market approach.“Technology continues to drive change, which can bring opportunities and threats. I have to help the business leverage the former and avoid the latter,” Sayers says.As the company continues to feel the strictures of a tight market and its IT layoffs, Sayers says both his job and his approach to technology are changing. “My role used to be more of a visionary. Now I am also taking on day-to-day development. … It is crucial that I marry vision with practicality.” Specifically, the CTO is moving Reuters to an onshore/offshore development model. In one year, Reuters set up a software development group in Bangkok, Thailand, that grew from 14 developers to more than 150 today. “My biggest focus this year is making sure that I deliver on the transformation of the group and on a single business architecture, with no exceptions,” Sayers says. “As part of the streamlining efforts, I must also attack legacy systems that hold us back.” Technology Industry