Just a quick post today with a link to a depressing article in the WSJ on Forrester Research’s projection of 2009 technology spending. Also, I’ll be heading to Webinnovators this evening; hope to see some of you there.
2009 Technology Spend Projections
The WSJ is reporting that Forrester projects very light technology spending growth for 2009. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, and to be completely honest I hope that we don’t see a decline. Our conversation with CIOs at large corporations, particularly financial services firms, have been pretty downbeat. Most of these executives are under pressure to be very careful with their technology spending next year. Forrester is projecting a 1.6% growth in software, hardware and services spend next year for a total of $573 billion.
The items that worries me the most is that, in a flat spending technology environment one line item tends to continue to grow and crowd out other spend - services. Technology management is becoming increasingly difficult, and the people costs of keeping systems running and patched/updated keeps getting more and more complex. If a CIO has the mandate to keep spending flat, and if additional employees, consultants and outside services are required to simply keep existing systems running then new tech spend like software and hardware could actually fall a bit next year. Let’s keep our fingers crossed! Unless you’re a CIO - then keep your fingers busy signing checks to acquire that new virtualization solution and to build out that awesome new data center!!!
Webinnovators
I’ll be at Webinnovators this evening. (I guess it is technically called the Web Innovators Group). Royal Sonesta Cambridge, 40 Edwin H Land Blvd, Cambridge, MA 02142 - 6:30 PM.
Bonus Link: CFO Basics Presentation
Mark MacLeod has a good post with a presentation he gave on what a good startup CFO needs to think about.
