At first glance, an upstart airline and a century-old electric utility might not seem to have much in common. Not so says the Chief Information Officer of Virgin America Airlines, who kicked off Knowledge 2007 this morning. Bill Maguire explained how IT for an airline barely 10 weeks in the sky, created by larger-than-life British entrepreneur and adventurer Richard Branson, and a utility striving to become an Intelligent Enterprise aren't all that different.

This is Bill Opalka, the Topics Editor for Energy Central, and I'll be blogging from Austin, where K2007 got off to a lively start.  

"This is a highly regulated industry, just like utilities," Maguire says. So keeping costs down, providing superior service, and using the latest technologies aren't just goals, they're requirements.

And the key driver in Virgin's technology is reliance on Free Open Source Solutions. FOSS provides much of the company's software and e-commerce solutions. It's very low-risk to the business, cuts costs and helps reduce head count, all major concerns of the CIO, Maguire says. Virgin, with relationships with outside partners in customer service and othe functions, has an IT staff of 17, where a similar enterprise might be expected to have 100 people. Another real-world cost benefit -- its e-commerce site cost $700,000, when a similar operation might be expected to run $3.5 million to $5 million.