In-Depth
IT Spending Shifts To Business Continuity, Services; Linux Not In The Picture, European Survey Shows
A new survey of future European IT spending plans shows Linux is nowhere on CIO radar screens.
A major new survey, detailing future European IT spending plans, has dealt a major body blow to Linux, showing that it is nowhere on CIO radar screens, relegated to being a low urgency “tactical” purchase.
Instead, European CIOs put business continuity and disaster recovery at the top of the list, with 53 percent saying they must act on it soon. These are just some of the results from a survey of CIOs across Europe by research firm Rethink Research Associates.
"CIO Business Spending Priorities—Trends 2004" also covers spending plans in mobile, ERP, CRM, SCM, and SANs, but found perversely that none of the senior managers care whether or not they install Linux, nor when they install Windows 2003. Linux is completely overlooked by senior IT management, while Windows 2003 will be embraced, but not quite yet.
Across Europe, outsourcing is expected to suddenly pick up, too, with 65 percent of respondents planning to outsource some or all of their IT department, with two thirds of those wanting to do it in a hurry.
If you run an outsourcing company, head for France, because there the outsourcing mania is cited by as many as 85 percent of CIOs.
ERP systems are set to begin receiving upgrades. This is also the year when mobility is finally going to come to the enterprise user in Europe due to constant internal pressure.
As for business confidence generally, over half of the respondents (53 percent) believe the business performance of their own vertical market is improving in 2003. While the optimism is spread across different sectors, there are marked national differences. These range from 81 percent of UK panelists who can see improvement in their market to 35 percent taking an optimistic view in France and Benelux.
The full report is a 50-page document including graphs and diagrams, and covers spending priorities for 2003-2004 by country and industry sector, the most urgent projects by country and industry sector, CIO attitudes to investment, and plans across 12 technologies
All conclusions are drawn from the survey of 100 CIOs across western Europe, supplemented with in-depth qualitative interviews with 15 of the respondents.
Rethink Research Associates offers a unique series of IT market research surveys based on responses from Europe’s most senior IT executives, and offers a new survey every month.
For more information on the survey, visit http://www.rethinkresearch.biz.
About the Author
Rethink Research Associates (www.rethinkresearch.biz) provides analyst and research publications and consultancy/advisory services on enterprise IT, wireless technology, and broadband digital media.