MGM Mirage is the name behind some the biggest brands in the gaming industry. It also a major force in Las Vegas: 17 properties on the Strip, and an $8 billion development project CityCenter scheduled for completion in 2009.

MGM Mirage executives Aldo Manzi and CIO Tom Peck shared some of the challenges and opportunities in setting a technology course for this resort giant during this morning's Innovator Interview with Gartner Analysts Betsy Burton and David Cearley.

Cearley asked Manzi how MGM Mirage manages innovation across such a large portfolio. "What makes our company tremendously effective in this space is the portfolio of brands within different market segments. It gives an opportunity to experiment," Manzi said.

Peck talked about innovation from a technology perspective. "It's everybody's job to innovate," he noted. "We like to deliver centralized tools that the P&Ls of the resorts can choose to use."

This approach is partly driven by the heavily regulated nature of the gaming industry. Regulation "slows innovation and time to market. The good thing is that guests know the systems are clean and pure, and have been certified," Peck said.

Clearly, MGM Mirage is looking to raise the technological bar with the CityCenter project. "We have moved upscale with more choices. The expectations of our guests have also increased tremendously," Manzi said. "It's the whole destination resort experience."

Peck added, "the CityCenter model is we want to own that bandwidth to the room. Getting the bandwidth and connectivity to the room right is absolutely critical." Getting it right, he explained, may translate into such innovations as room and player data being tranferred on to a guest's mobile phone. The phone would then become the device that opens the room door, tracks gaming play and provides other functions. "Technology has to help us know our guests better," Peck said.

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