Market Watch: Features

It's been more than three years since HP acquired IT services provider EDS, and the long-term direction of its bigger - if not better - outsourcing business is no more clear than it was on the day the deal closed.

Out went 42 aging black and white copiers with interface boxes that let them serve as printers. In went 42 new networked multi-function printers (MFPs) that could do color printing and copying and scan directly to e-mail, fax or files. And the owner, the Park Hill School District in Kansas City, MO, saves $19,000 yearly.

It's free, easier to use than ever, IT staffers know it and love it, and it has fewer viruses and Trojans than Windows.

First, a scary statistic: Gartner predicts that in less than three years, 35 per cent of enterprise IT expenditures will happen outside of the corporate IT budget. Employees will regularly subscribe to collaboration, analytic and other Cloud services they want, all with the press of a button. Others will simply build their own applications using readily available Cloud-based tools and development platforms.

While data storage has always been a necessary building block for technology, it's rarely garnered as much attention as it has in the past two years. The reason: Corporate and retail consumers are being forced to store greater amounts of data and they need to make that data more useful - and accessible.

In a 2009 Gartner survey of Asia-Pacific organisations about their software spending intentions, positive outlook increasingly varied by country, and was not only dominated by emerging countries such as China and India. Mature countries such as Australia and Singapore are not conservative in their software budget plan.

Storage: Getting down to business

ASX-listed integrators have mimicked the uncertain economic climate, with a mixed bag of results for the first half of the financial year indicating fierce competition in the days ahead.

Microsoft this week outlined its intent to stand and fight against a difficult economy with a plan to go after competitors and seize market share in areas like netbooks, mobile devices/services, browsers, databases and even search/advertising.

Industry sources have flagged a possible rash of merger and acquisition activity in coming months as businesses reel from the economic downturn.

Several ASX-listed service providers have fallen victim to wilting customer sentiment spawned by the global financial crisis, reporting drop offs in earnings for the first half of the financial year.

Industry representatives are divided on whether Satyam Computer Services’ accounting debacle will affect customer perceptions of offshore versus Australian services providers.

I always thought that I was lucky to be born in Brazil, but the real value of my ancestry became apparent to me only after I became CIO of General Motors Europe. As you can imagine, a lot of my energy was consumed by the process of managing a large, decentralized team that was both multinational and multicultural.

In the past decade, Microsoft's steady, uninterrupted sales growth has been matched by only one thing: its steady hiring.

New Year's is a great occasion for taking pause to reassess priorities, needs, and wants. As we enter what looks to be a trying 2009, such a pause is even more critical. IT resources will be limited and business pressures higher. But that doesn't mean you withdraw or go into reactive mode. In tough times, being clear on your priorities is even more important, as everything you do is more critical. So InfoWorld asked its CTO Council member and its cadre of expert contributors for their top New Year's resolutions to give the tech industry a list that we hope will help you make the most of your 2009 priorities.

Well, we blew it a year ago on the prediction that last month's US presidential election would lead to historic turnout -- it didn't quite hit that mark -- and unprecedented problems with e-voting systems. The problems, it turns out, were for the most part precedented. On the positive side, we nailed the result, forecasting the election of Barack Obama. Not inclined to rest on that laurel (and a few others we also accurately foretold), we've set forth again to find out what industry analysts are forecasting for 2009, and we've talked to sources as well as to our geekiest friends and colleagues to come up with our own set of predictions for 2009.

For Jerry Yang, 2008 was going to be the year when Yahoo's long-awaited technology and business turnaround began in earnest.

Tech budgets aren't immune to the economic downturn. Market research firm IDC expects IT spending to grow just 2.6 percent worldwide and less than 1 percent in the US next year. Gartner is even more pessimistic: Its latest forecast calls for 2.3 percent growth globally in 2009.

The global economy is in as bad shape as we've ever seen. In the last two months, US consumers have stopped spending money on discretionary items, including electronic gear, prompting this week's bankruptcy filing by Circuit City. Retailers are worried that Black Friday will indeed be black, as holiday shoppers cut back on spending and choose lower-priced cell phones and notebook computers.

Several industry representatives have applauded the Federal Government’s quick decision to implement the Gershon Report’s recommendations into ICT procurement in full, but are debating the ramifications on the broader market.