Stories by CIO New Zealand

Name: Michael Rich
Company: Attaché Software

Kansas City International Airport has chosen Gentrack software for its multiple user flight information display system (MUFIDS)and airport operational database.
Gentrack has developed the 20/20 Airport Management System. The 20/20 MUFIDS and IED Audio Paging System upgrade will be implemented in three months with all current LED and LCD display equipment being retained throughout the airport. The system will be installed on servers running Microsoft Windows Server and Oracle database technology, Gentrack says.

Lumley General Insurance in New Zealand has renewed its contract with Unisys to implement a technology refresh of the IT infrastructure, supporting the company’s current core insurance applications. The three-year contract renewal builds on a 20-year relationship in which Unisys has provided mainframe and datacentre services, says Unisys.

What are the critical and strategic issues facing today’s ICT leaders? How should they respond to the shifts in the rules of market competition? How do they successful navigate the move from ICT manager to business leader?
These are some of the key questions a panel of local and offshore business leaders will cover at the CIO Summit 2010 on July 20 and 21 at SkyCity Convention Centre.

Name: Tim Dacombe-Bird
Company: VMware

Global IT expenditure is expected to rise slightly this year, the first increase since the onset of the global economic downturn, reports analyst firm Ovum.
In its survey of IT decision makers, Ovum states that one-third expect their budgets will increase in 2010. Despite this cautious optimism, there are signs that CIOs do not yet view IT as an engine for growth and that 2010 will mostly be a year of reckoning.

Springboard Research, an IT market research and analyst firm has acquired Australian-based Hydrasight.
In a press statement, Springboard says the merger is expected to expand its coverage areas in the Asia Pacific region and to provide services specifically targeted at enterprise-class consumers of technology.

With uncertainty remaining over the global economic recovery, IT organisations expect to be cutting software services and deferring non-critical projects this year, Forrester reports.
“Money and manpower have been reallocated to efforts with clear and more immediate returns, and CIOs are becoming — if they’re not already — sticklers for ROI calculations, to justify software projects,” writes Forrester analyst Tim de Gennaro in The CIO’s 2010 Software Outlook.

A research paper on New Zealand’s innovation performance from 1998 to 2008 reveals that while some industry sectors have performed reasonably well; the country’s overall rate of innovation has remained virtually flat for nearly a decade.
The report, Innovation Index of New Zealand, reveals that after rising by 13 percent between 1998 and 2000, the whole-of-economy index was flat for the next seven years.

This year will be a busy time for ICT recruitment, with on-hold projects getting the green light and headcount freezes for ICT departments being lifted, recruitment company Robert Walters reports.
“Employees who were loyal to their organisations during the recession are now beginning to voice their dissatisfaction, expecting reparations for the ‘sweat debt’ they ran up in the last year,” says Richard Manthel, managing director of Robert Walters NZ, in a press statement.

Ovum predicts an ongoing recovery within the Australia/New Zealand software market.
In its latest report entitled “ANZ Market Trends 2009: IT software forecast”, the analyst firm says the ANZ market will show growth of above 4.8 percent in 2010.

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ICT chiefs expressed the most concern about the rising business use of smartphones and Web 2.0 social technologies, more so than cloud computing or data centre virtualisation, reports Forrester.
The analyst firm interviewed ICT decision-makers in North America and Europe in the third quarter of 2009, and found that when it comes to new technologies or initiatives, nearly half (46 percent) of enterprises expressed concern about smartphones, and 38 percent were concerned about Web 2.0 technologies.