IBM Chief Sees Global Tech Spending Rise
611719
PARIS  - Companies will spend more money next year on information technology and other capital investments compared with 2004, the chief executive of the world's biggest computer company, IBM Corp, said on Friday.
345235
A Sun Microsystems executive said the $13 billion technology company should be able to handle a possible slowdown in information technology (IT) spending better than some of its larger rivals.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
312472
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.
499002
The tech giant gives a strong outlook on the back of booming international sales
179633
Microsoft will step up its investments in AsiaÂ over the next two years as part of a bid to strengthen its relationship with partners and corporate customers in the area of mission-critical technologies.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
23504
International Business Machines Corp.  is reaping the rewards of a decade-long push into China's  business computer industry and is eyeing upward of a 50-percent  market share, its country head said.
59357
The top executive at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), the world&#39;s biggest contract chipmaker, offered a mixed message Thursday about prospects for the global chip industry in 2008.Speaking at the company&#39;s third quarter investor conference, President and CEO Rick Tsai predicted that the chip industry will strengthen in 2008, but he also said TSMC will spend &quot;significantly less&quot; on new plants and equipment next year.TSMC announced net sales of NT$88.96 billion&#160;(US$2.73 billion) for the July to September period, up nearly 8 percent over the same time last year. Its net profit fell 6.5 percent to NT$30.37 billion, nearly in line with analyst&#39;s expectations.&quot;The third quarter was better than expected, not just for TSMC, but for the whole electronics industry,&quot; Tsai said. Sales of chips to the PC sector, mobile phone segment and consumer electronics products group were all brisk, he said.But many analysts considered TSMC&#39;s forecast to be more important than its third-quarter results. That&#39;s because of&#160;uncertainty about economic growth in the U.S.&#160;due to the housing loan problems there, high oil prices, and other troubles that could ultimately impact spending on electronics.TSMC is considered a&#160;bellwether for the tech industry&#160;because of the wide range of chips it manufactures, which end up in products including Xbox 360s, iPhones, PCs, and automobiles.&quot;We&#39;re expecting 2008 to be a better year than 2007 for the semiconductor industry,&quot; Tsai said. The chip industry will grow by a mid-to-high single digit percentage in 2008, the company forecast, compared to expected growth of 4 percent in 2007.Despite the rosy outlook, TSMC will reduce its 2008 capital spending from the expected US$2.6 billion in 2007. Spending cuts often indicate that a company isn&#39;t very bullish about business prospects, but TSMC said it wants to reduce spending next year because it spent heavily on production lines in 2007 that won&#39;t begin producing chips until next year.The change in spending plans is significant, said Eric Chen, research director at BNP Paribas Securities (Taiwan). If TSMC&#39;s capital spending drops by about 30 percent, as many analysts have predicted, it won&#39;t be a surprise, he said. But if the company reduces spending by a lot more, it suggests that TSMC may be more concerned about future economic growth than it is letting on.Tsai said TSMC hasn&#39;t determined a specific figure yet for its 2008 capital spending.BNP believes Europe and the U.S. may both face slowing economic growth next year.
396402
International Business Machines Corp. is reaping the rewards of a decade-long push into China's business computer industry and is eyeing upward of a 50-percent market share, its country head said.
101687
IBM is looking to the developing world to fuel its growth.
757409
By Duncan Martell SAN FRANCISCO  - IBM is expanding and adding newtechnology to 11 of its data centers in North America, Europeand Asia to meet growing demand and rolled out new services tocustomers, the world's largest computer company said late onThursday.
478852
Worldwide research and development spending in the emerging field of nanotechnology should rise about 10 percent this year to &#36;8.6 billion, a research firm said on Monday.
96725
Strong overseas demand pushes IBM to a better-than-expected fourth quarter.
506936
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - The days of relying on shrinking transistors to achieve performance gains are over, and the chip industry needs to enter a new era of innovation where system-level features are just as important as thinner transistor gates, said IBM Corp.'s Bernie Meyerson in a keynote address at the Fall Processor Forum Tuesday.
595905
Amid mixed indications of software industry's health, polled tech execs predict spending rise.
395518
Services and businesses are boosting tech spending with network equipment purchases, researchers say.
42207
The head of one of the world's largest funders of biomedical research is has said that he's set to substantially increase funding.
612139
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.