Leader: Agenda Setters 2005 - return of the dot-coms

Once again the silicon.com Agenda Setters poll of tech's most influential individuals highlights a number of key trends in the IT industry, including the importance of security, the influence from the Far East and the rise of grassroots media such as blogging and podcasting.

But it's the top of the list that strikes a new chord. This year's winner, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, marks a return of the dot-coms. Not since 2001, when AOL Time Warner's Steve Case walked away with it, has a CEO of an internet company won the poll.

Schmidt's placement reveals the panel's belief that Google will continue to become more and more ubiquitous in users' lives. Joined by four other dot-com execs - Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, eBay's Meg Whitman and Jeff Skoll, and Yahoo!'s Terry Semel - Schmidt represents a sea change in the wider IT industry too.

When the Agenda Setters poll began in 2000, these were the upstarts, the up-and-comers. But now they're sitting side by side - and in some cases ahead of - the Silicon Valley old guard and the leaders from Europe and the Far East. In fact Schmidt and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (number 12) place higher than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (14) and chairman Bill Gates (20). Jo Best discusses this trend in more depth.

Plenty of today's upstarts made the list, including voice over IP players Niklas Zennstrom (4) from Skype and Jeffrey Citron (36) from Vonage, for their role in championing VoIP and the threat they pose to the traditional telcos. As explained in Sylvia Carr's analysis piece, they're joined by others who are challenging the status quo, including open source figurehead Linus Torvalds (11), who for the first time beats Bill Gates. It's all proof our panel feels it's not just those holding power now who set agendas but also those who are working to reshape that very power structure.

Looking to the future, we see the mounting influence of Agenda Setters from the Far East. The big Indian IT services companies are represented: TCS' Ramadorai (22), Infosys' Murthy (37) and Wipro's Premji (41). Even higher up is the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao at 6. We've had the Chinese official on the list before but this year the Asian corporate bosses stand out. These include Ren Zhengfei (18) from China's Huawei Technologies - a company seen to be challenging Cisco - and Kun-Hee Lee (7) from Korea's Samsung Electronics. Andy McCue has more on the Asian Agenda Setters here.

In the media world, Ashley Highfield (3) and Rupert Murdoch (8) rank the highest but given the rise of alternative distribution methods such as blogging and podcasting, it's fitting that Adam Curry (13), creator of podcasting, and two bloggers - Mark Cuban (34) and Tony Perkins (38) - claim spots. Will Sturgeon looks at what these new technologies mean for the established giants.

The poll includes fewer players from the mobile and wireless world than previously, as noted by Tony Hallett, showing how these technologies are loosing their 'cool factor' and are viewed as mere plumbing.

Last but not least, it's no surprise - given the continued disruption to business and user's lives from malware and spam - security makes a big showing. Symantec CEO John Thompson (15) is the rep from the vendor community, while the authors of Hacking Exposed ring in at number 33 and organised crime even gets the nod at 17 for its role in perpetrating the production of malware and the hijacking of PCs across the world. Will Sturgeon also points out some Agenda Setters you may not associate with security but do play a big role in the issue.

The sixth annual Agenda Setters poll presents a mix of the usual big names and some upstarts - a sign the industry's surely maturing but also still enjoying a healthy share of competition and innovation. Not a bad place to be.