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• All shook up

  For all the vagaries of IT services, traditional IT outsourcing has always been quite tangible - servers, data centres, networks, specifications, man-hours, lines of code. The rise of cloud computing, however, is changing all of that with flexible, asset-free IT services available on an as-needed basis for more aspects of enterprise technology.
  Cloud services are a boon for many IT departments willing to forego customization: They help IT organisations chip away at hefty capital expenditures from back-end infrastructure to customer-facing software and everything in between. Consequently, the cloud is turning the traditional IT services industry on its head.

• The 10 mobile technologies to watch

  Organisations are ramping up both business-to-employee (B2E) and business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile spending, according to Gartner, which says that investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011.
  The analyst firm has identified 10 mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2011 and expects this evolution to impact both short-term mobile strategies and policies.

• Gartner: Spending on external service providers to increase

  The results of a recent survey by Gartner indicate increased spending with external service providers (ESPs) will lead to a return to growth in the IT services market.
  According to the survey, 85 percent of organisations worldwide anticipate that their spending with ESPs will increase or stay the same.
  Seventy six percent of organisations surveyed are optimistic about the economic recovery indicating that in their planning cycles, they are seeing that a recovery already began in 2009 or will occur in 2010.
  According to Gartner, organisations in Australia and New Zealand are most optimistic of an early recovery, and those in Japan are least optimistic. 63 percent of ANZ respondents said that their spending on external service providers would increase, the highest proportion of all countries surveyed. Only 10 percent said it would decrease.
  "The impact of the global economic recession in 2008 through 2009 has been significant, in some cases radically changing a vertical market or a company's competitive position. Buyers of services have been impacted in many areas, making them more cautious regarding IT spending," says Gartner vice president and analyst Allie Young.
  "In terms of IT services spending, the recession has been clearly felt by organisations, which report the following changes in their behaviours: increased contract renegotiations with ESPs, greater influence of the CFO and procurement in IT services spending, and increased levels of offshore services usage. However, the good news for service providers going forward is that the majority of buyers of IT and business process services will increasingly turn to ESPs to support the execution of their IT strategies."
  Young says that the results of the survey confirm an overall positive market acceptance of ESPs to support IT initiatives.
  “Service providers that prioritize understanding the marketplace and monitoring the changes in their client and user environments will be best-prepared to capitalise on growth.”
  According to Gartner, sole-source decision making in IT services is largely over; however, through deep relationships, providers still rely on new opportunity leads and expansion of services from existing client relationships, often as sole-source opportunities.
  "Although there are positive signs of a return to growth, we will remain in a hypercompetitive IT services environment for some time, with more provider options for buyers to consider, a focus on cost continuing to dominate in buyer considerations, and very likely more providers pursuing the same opportunities," says Young.
  "Service providers across all types of service categories and relationship models have the potential to capitalise on growth opportunities as the economy recovers, yet there will likely be little relief from the extreme competitive challenges experienced by service providers in the 2008-through-2009 economic downturn."

• Let it reign

  The concept of an infinitely flexible, agile, mobile, enterprise-friendly, omnipotent provider of all IT needs is as elusive as it is attractive. In many ways it was fitting that it should end up with the moniker cloud computing - a joke that cannot be lost on vendor executives charged with selling the nascent concept to suspicious information chiefs during the past couple of years.
  Elastic resource provisioning, software as a service, infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, pay-per-use servers and storage - cloud computing means different things to different people depending on the specific demands of their business.

• How to choose your antispam strategy

  At the most basic level, enterprise antispam systems protect organisations against email-related threats by identifying and removing junk mail and malicious messages. Some of the major threats, according to Radicati Group, include viruses, directory harvest attacks and denial of service attacks.
  These systems have also broadened their approach to keep up with increased compliance needs and the evolution of email threats toward phishing and malware-distribution URLs, according to Chenxi Wang, an analyst at Forrester Research. For instance, many systems now support antivirus, content filtering for inbound and outbound email as well as Web and instant messaging traffic, encryption, archiving and e-discovery, or they integrate with systems that offer these functions, she says. Forrester calls this type of system "email filtering"; Radicati, "email security"; and Gartner, "email gateway."

• CIOs don't expect IT recovery

  CIOs who survived 2009, during which IT budgets dropped by 8 percent on average, don't expect to see business recover or IT dollars return immediately in 2010. They do, however, intend to makeover IT departments as leaner, more lightweight entities ready to respond to business needs, according to Gartner research released Tuesday.
  A survey of 1,600 CIOs worldwide shows that while many speculate economic conditions will recover, 41 percent of IT leaders globally are planning for "continued business contraction." Worldwide, 53 percent expect to see stabilisation in 2010, and 6 percent expect to see growth.

• Falling PC Prices Pit Microsoft Against PC Makers

  Last week, research firm Gartner released a PC sales forecast that initially sounded like good news for Microsoft and its hardware partners, but likely indicates trouble ahead.

• Gartner buying AMR Research in US$64 million deal

  Gartner announced it is buying AMR Research for US$64 million, in the latest acquisition by the giant IT research firm. The deal is expected to be completed this month.
  AMR is known for its emphasis on supply chain management. It has roughly 40 analysts and 45 sales representatives, and is on track to gross US$40 million this year, according to Gartner.

• Microsoft hits back over Gartner jibes

  Microsoft has hit back against jibes from the world's largest technology analyst firm, Gartner, which attacked its Windows Mobile operating system last week and questioned its future in an enterprise context.
  At Gartner's annual symposium in Sydney last week, analyst Robin Simpson advised companies not to invest in Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform.

• Upbeat Intel sales lead road to recovery

  A brighter than expected outlook from Intel, the world's largest maker of computer chips, has fuelled hopes that personal computer manufacturers can avoid an annual sales dip for the first time since the dotcom crash of 2001.
  Research firm Gartner was predicting a drop of almost 12 per cent in unit sales back in March, after consumer and business demand ground to a halt in the wake of the global financial crisis.

• IT spending will fall by 6 percent in 2009, says Gartner

  Worldwide IT spending is expected to decline by a further six percent this year, according to analyst firm Gartner.
  The firm said it was expecting to see IT spend total US$3.2 trillion in 2009, a six per cent fall against the $3.4 trillion it saw in 2008.

• ANZ CIOs’ tough response to lean times

  More than half of the chief information officers in Australia and New Zealand expect ICT budgets to grow in 2009, with an average increase of 1.67 per cent.
  Twenty-two percent expect their budget to decrease, 19 per cent expect it to remain flat, while 59 per cent expect their IT budget to increase in 2009, reports Gartner.

• Fairfax ICT executive joins Gartner

  Linda Price, director of information technology and group human resources for John Fairfax Holdings, is leaving to join analyst firm Gartner as group vice president, Executive Programmes (ExP) in Asia Pacific. She is replacing Mary Ann Maxwell, who is returning home to the US.
  Price joins Gartner with more than 20 years of IT experience in media, manufacturing and service organisations.

• Gartner issues wakeup call

  By Don Hill
  Gartner group vice-president Craig Baty has issued a wakeup call to CIOs. “Today’s CIOs need to be able to demonstrate the business value of IT in the same way that other business units have been required to do in the past,” he says.