CIO poll shows optimism over increased tech spending
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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.
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(InfoWorld) - SMBs in North America expect to increase their IT spending by an average of only 2 percent this year after boosting spending 8 percent in 2006, according to a Forrester Research survey. The survey of about 1,200 businesses with six to 999 employees released Tuesday showed that 62 percent of them have an optimistic outlook for their companies this year, up from 46 percent in a 2006 survey, but that doesn't translate into significantly more IT spending, said analyst Michael Speyer. "Last year's spending increased fairly robustly. The ... market is telling us now, 'Guess what? We're going to keep it steady now,'" Speyer said. IT spending will focus on new hardware purchases and added personnel. Hardware spending is expected to focus on replacing or upgrading servers and the regularly scheduled replacement of about 25 to 30 percent of companies' desktops and workstations. Software purchases will be mostly of network security and Web application products. Twenty percent of IT managers surveyed said improving the efficiency of their IT systems is a top priority, and 33 percent of them are focused on measuring the impact of their IT spending on business performance. Although virtualization is a big trend in IT, SMBs are less focused on it than are large enterprises, Speyer said. Virtualization, which, among other things, makes it easier to run multiple software applications simultaneously on one physical server, enables a company to consolidate the number of servers it operates. But SMBs are less likely to use virtualization for server consolidation because the potential savings are not as great as in enterprises. "If you look at a typical midmarket company, anything from 12 to 17 servers, there's not a whole lot of hardware there. Where server consolidation plays out is in the enterprise space where you have hundreds of servers," he said. Although SMBs may do some server consolidation, they may still buy some new servers for disaster recovery and security purposes and to run new software applications, the survey said. And although new technology is supposed to increase automation, SMBs will devote 29 percent of their IT budgets to full-time IT staff, the highest of any spending category, including hardware, software, and networking equipment. As IT systems grow, they get more difficult to manage, but SMBs don't have the in-house staff to manage systems as an enterprise does, Speyer said. So while they may have to hire more full-time employees or part-time contractors, they may also turn to system integrators or value-added resellers to take over some management functions. IT spending also varied by industry sector. Spending is expected to rise most steeply in the telecommunications sector (7 percent), business services (5 percent), and finance and insurance (3.4 percent). It is expected to decline in the manufacturing sector (-0.6 percent) and the media, entertainment, and leisure sector (-0.9 percent).
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U.S. chief executives have become slightly less optimistic about the economy in the past quarter, but half plan to increase capital spending in the next six months, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
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CIO Magazine says poll shows IT budgets are expected to grow over the next year.
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December survey shows U.S. tech workers are optimistic about jobs, bucking national trend.
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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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INDIANAPOLIS, June 6  /PRNewswire/ -- A net 5 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) in the Indianapolis area expect to hire information technology (IT) professionals in the third quarter of 2007, according to the most recent Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report.
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MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 11  /PRNewswire/ -- A net 5 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area expect to hire information technology (IT) professionals in the first quarter of 2007, according to the most recent Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report.
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CIOs polled by Forrester Research said optimism in the North American business climate is up over last quarter, and the number of CIOs citing a "very strong business climate" has tripled.
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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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WASHINGTON, Dec. 11  /PRNewswire/ -- A net 18 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) in the Washington, D.C., area expect to hire information technology (IT) professionals in the first quarter of 2007, according to the most recent Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report.
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By Scott Duke Harris, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Dec. 8--Business confidence ticked upward in the latest Bay Area Council survey of top executives, as optimists outnumbered pessimists by nearly three to one in the region -- and by more than four to one in the heart of Silicon Valley.
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CIOs surveyed by Forrester Research are more confident than they were earlier in the year, and expect IT spending to grow by 7% next year.
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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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A new survey indicates that CIOs are only hiring for positions that address long-term needs. By TechWeb News. Chief information officers in the US continue to take a cautious approach to increasing IT staff
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Not expecting a rush of IT spending during the last three months of 2004, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina said Thursday that IT buyers have become smarter and more
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Worldwide spending on enterprise IP PBXes should grow by 45 percent over the next year, according to an upbeat report released Monday by Boston-based Infonetics Research.