BusinessWeek is reporting that the Obama transition team has narrowed its choices for the newly created CTO position down to two: cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior and current city of Washington DC CTO Vivek Kundra.

Apart from the obvious association made from the fact that both are natives of India, the candidates otherwise appear to be almost polar opposites. Kundra has made a name for himself recently by running the DC IT shop like a Web 2.0 startup, exposing data in innovative ways and making use of new concepts and technologies to bring a holistic approach to government IT (including *gasp!* iPhones). Warrior, on the other hand, we have not heard much of since she took the Cisco job after a hard ending at Motorola, but her background has been at large, staid firms of that sort and while she enjoys a fine reputation in the industry, it's unclear what sort of change she might bring to an administration which has promised such quality. Kundra, a current advisor to the president elect, has some street cred at turning government IT upside down and making it as functional as Obama has promised it will be; if nothing else, I would imagine that tips the scales in his favor.