US tech execs more optimistic about spending: Study
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New York, August 31: US technology executives are increasingly optimistic about the business climate, although plans for increased technology spending remain modest, according to a study released on Monday.
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Tech companies waiting for a big resurgence in spending on computer hardware, software, networks and staff better plan to wait about four more years, Forrester Research projected yesterday.
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Despite financial market volatility, U.S. technology companies had a strong 2007. The rising cost of energy, fears of recession, and forecasts of a slowdown in IT spending, however, point to a rocky 2008.
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US IT spending will grow by seven per cent next year, according to a study out yesterday from IT analysts Forrester Research. Forrester predicts that spending on IT goods, services, and staff will remain at seven per cent over the next three years.
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The latest Tech Poll from CIO Magazine indicates that IT spending next year will rise -- but not as fast as CIOs thought earlier this year. A separate study from Equs Group Inc. paints a rosier IT spending picture.
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A Gartner Inc. survey of some 1,300 CIOs in 30 countries found that they plan to spend more IT dollars this year, but they must target the money into areas that foster growth, such as business intelligence and improved business processes.
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(InfoWorld) - The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke a record this week, but that doesn't mean that the technology sector has recovered from its half-decade hangover after the burst of the dot-com bubble. The Nasdaq has made gains in recent weeks and closed the third quarter up about 4 percent, compared with the second quarter, but it is still is about 55 percent down from its peak in March 2000. On Tuesday, the Dow hit 11,727.34, its highest point ever, and continued to climb, closing Thursday at 11,866.69. Strong retail sales, signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve that lending rates will be kept low, and generally lower oil prices (though there have been some spikes recently) have generated a feeling of optimism for business. Though there are signs that some of this optimism has spilled into the tech sector recently, IT vendors have a long way to go before they reach the exalted levels of 2000. While the Dow index measures 30 large companies, including four of the largest IT vendors (Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., and IBM Corp.) the Nasdaq is a much better bellwether for the tech sector, since it is so heavily weighted with technology companies, large and small. Thursday it closed at 2306.34, up 15.39 points for the day. But at its peak on March 10, 2000, it hit 5048.62. Corporate IT departments are still under great pressure to contain costs, so vendors aiming at the enterprise have an uphill battle. According to a CIO Magazine Tech Poll released this week, executives surveyed during the third quarter forecast IT budget increases of 6.5 percent for the next 12 months. That's down from an average 6.9 percent increase reported in the second-quarter survey. In one worrying sign, only 46 percent of the executives said they had intentions of moving to software-as-a-service (SAAS) computing architectures. SAAS has been seen as a harbinger of better times for the software industry. Other surveys are more optimistic, however. For example, The Equs Group's poll, also released this week, found that 55 percent of executives surveyed plan budget increases of 5 percent to 15 percent for 2007, and that 21 percent of the respondents forecast spending increases between 25 percent and 50 percent. Analysts at brokerages have been raising expectations on the tech sector, reasoning that some IT vendors shares have fallen so low that they are now a bargain. Also, price decreases as a result of vicious competition in the PC sector are expected to trigger a miniboom in hardware shopping at the end of the year. While it may take years for the Nasdaq to attain the level it reached in the boom years, some clarity around the next few quarters should happen in the next few weeks. In the week of October 16, financials reports should give a good indication of how end-of-year sales will shape up, especially in hardware. A variety of industry bellwethers will be reporting: Dell Inc., Intel Corp., Apple Computer Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and IBM Corp. Intel will get a chance to report whether its latest spate of product announcements, including 64-bit processors, has helped it regain market share it lost to AMD. Analysts will get a chance to press Apple about how it will weather competition from Microsoft Corp. in the music player arena, and whether a lack of a new video iPod will be a big blow.
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Consumers are more confident about the state of the US economy than at any time in the past five months, new data suggests.
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The tech giant gives a strong outlook on the back of booming international sales
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For government agencies and their employees hoping to work remotely in order to meet congressionally mandated targets, a new survey of federal information technology decision makers commissioned by Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) has some encouraging news.
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A quarterly survey of U.S. chief  executives showed they plan to increase hiring and capital  spending, despite recent soft economic data, concerns about  sluggish job growth and high energy prices.
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Money spent on computing technology delivers gains in worker productivity that are three to five times those of other investments, a new study said.
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Stocks jumped on Tuesday, helped by optimism about the outlook for technology spending and gains in oil prices that lifted energy shares.
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The outlook for the US economy in 2007 has picked up, a survey indicates, thanks to robust consumer spending.
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Federal spending on contractors is expected to grow more quickly than it has historically in 2005, with contractors that specialize in technology services growing the most according to experts.  -The Washington Post
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After years of hearing that investing in IT was a smart strategic plan, business executives seem to have gotten the message, according to a new Gartner CIO survey released today -- but only when the dollars are going to technology efforts that have visible benefits for the bottom line, primarily externally facing initiatives involving customers or partners.The good news is that, despite the softening economy, IT budgets are going up 3.3 percent across the nearly 1,500 companies that Gartner surveyed. The data that matters for IT execs: Budgets for companies focused on bottom-line-oriented efforts are increasing 4.9 percent, said Mark McDonald, a Gartner Group vice president. Those organizations whose IT strategy involves only an efficiency focus will typically see budget increases of just 1.7 percent.The survey shows that a sea change has occurred in IT priorities, McDonald noted. The top three priorities in 2008 are improving business processes, attracting and retaining new customers, and creating new products and services. The sea change is the third priority, which was the No. 10 priority in 2007. Gone from the top three is reducing enterprise costs, which has slipped to No. 5. The decline of cost-cutting as a priority and the rise of innovation show the sea change that has occurred, McDonald says.But IT managers hoping for a return to the 1990s glory days of annual budget increases of 15-plus percent will be disappointed, McDonald said. In that era, IT budgets were driven by technology initiatives done almost for their own sake, as businesses both experimented with the new Internet and began to use technology widely within their walls. "Today, it's more about specific business needs," he said, "We're seeing strategies well grounded in business operations changes, not chasing a fad."And it's not CIOs driving the budget growth; it's the C-suite executives who now finally see IT as a business enabler, McDonald added. If anything, CIOs who promote IT as a force for business change were typically dismissed as self-interested. He noted, "Calling attention to yourself is never very positive."Although there is a mounting possibility that the U.S. economy may be entering a recession, McDonald doesn't believe IT will see its budgets slashed, as happened in the 2000-2001 recession. That recession came after years of unbridled IT spending whose specific business benefits were often unclear. The more moderate budget growth predicted for 2008 won't give businesses the same easy cuts they had then, he noted. "If you cut IT's budget by 10 percent, you might just see a 0.2 percent effect on the whole budget," McDonald explained, "You can get more bang for your buck by lowering [overall] operations costs through investing in better IT." That's why businesses are looking to increase IT spending for bottom-line-oriented initiatives, he said.
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LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) -- US technology spending is projected to rise 7 percent next year and continue at about the same rate through 2008, according to results of a survey released Monday that also showed improved optimism on outlays in the sector.