| December 4, 2007 | ERP has been here for years. Enterprises must now replace the systems they acquired during the exuberance of the late 1990s. ERP is still a challenging technology and not the knockout solution that vendors promise. |
| November 20, 2007 | A recent Info-Tech study finds that, despite all the hype surrounding Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), adoption is limited. Internal integration at a trial and/or departmental level is the extent of most implementations. And, despite large SOA awareness, most IT leaders have unclear definitions of their SOA strategy. |
| November 6, 2007 | IT managers are frequently faced with limitations in headcount, scarce skills, capital budget, or other resources. As communications services continue to evolve, and service delivery becomes more complex, outsourcing is an option to consider. More than 45% of enterprises are outsourcing all or some of their communications services requirements to service providers. They are motivated by the availability of skills that they may lack internally, which service providers offer as part of their solution delivery. |
| October 23, 2007 | Application development and maintenance outsourcing (AD/M-O) continues to increase in popularity. To properly establish project expectations, IT leaders must be aware of typical project characteristics and constraints. |
| October 9, 2007 | The mid-market is leading adoption of green technologies. This group has the best of both worlds; mid-market enterprises are large enough to be concerned about IT energy consumption and waste and yet still small and agile enough to do something about it. |
| September 25, 2007 | Trends in Disaster Recovery Plans (DRPs) amongst Info-Tech survey respondents demonstrate the need for continual testing, achievable Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs)/Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs), and centralized management of IT assets. Learn from the efforts of IT peers to improve DRP initiatives. |
| September 11, 2007 | Though individuals are the targets of Identity Theft, it is the enterprise that ends up paying the direct fraud costs of the bill. As Identity Theft continues to grow in significance, companies must stay aware of the threats and start taking an active position to minimize Identity Theft and the losses it creates. |
| August 14, 2007 | A recent Info-Tech survey of enterprise interest in print management suggests the demand for print cost/device management solutions has not yet peaked. Particularly, IT shops focused on cost control are missing a cost-savings opportunity. |
| July 31, 2007 | Small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) do not offshore application work despite growing popularity and potential cost savings. However, cost considerations continue to drive large enterprises to offshore application development and maintenance. |
| July 17, 2007 | Budget allocation for green initiatives is a critical first step towards curbing IT energy consumption, reducing waste, and increasing environmental responsibility. Info-Tech survey data indicates that spending on green IT is still a fairly new trend, but one that is on the rise. |
| July 3, 2007 | Portals are quickly gaining in popularity for enterprises of all sizes. The popularity of portals is driven by very specific business and technology issues in addition to new product introduction such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. |
| June 19, 2007 | Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has received considerable hype over the past few years. Vertical industries such as wholesale/retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and government are now adopting the technology at staggering rates. These industries should evaluate the benefits of RFID today. |
| June 5, 2007 | In 2007 IT departments will be increasing their spending by a moderate 4.5% overall. Industry sectors that are more likely to be increasing spending include Primary Industries, Business and Professional Services, and Financial Services. Government and Education sectors are least likely to be increasing spending. Among project areas, storage consolidation and mobility are most likely to get spending boosts. |
| May 22, 2007 | Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has become a very viable model in the enterprise applications market. IT professionals that remain unaware of or indifferent to SaaS will miss the opportunity to deliver applications with much faster implementation times. |
| May 8, 2007 | Business Intelligence (BI) is on the verge of further evolution. As enterprises mature and grow, the need to generate intelligence from the data used, created and modified by processes becomes paramount. This note explores the expanding BI market and looks at the success rates of enterprises that have gone down the path of BI implementation. |
| April 24, 2007 | The Canadian version of Sarbanes-Oxley has arrived. Canadian public companies are in an excellent position to learn from the compliance experiences of their American counterparts, and it's a chance they should not waste. |
| April 10, 2007 | The popularity of Open Source Software (OSS) for core IT functions is not universal. Primary industries will play a key role in determining the adoption patterns of OSS in the future. The key technology to watch is OSS for security. |
| March 27, 2007 | Future data centers will require considerably more power and cooling capacity than is available in most existing environments. Enterprises running high-density data centers face a looming energy crisis amid escalating cooling requirements, increasing power density, and rising energy costs. |
| March 13, 2007 | IT leaders are faced with the important task of improving enterprise performance while at the same time selecting applications designed to meet changing and complex business requirements. Learn about the success of popular enterprise applications from organizations that have gone down the path of implementation. |
| February 27, 2007 | Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions are experiencing significant change as both traditional and non-traditional vendors target increasingly smaller enterprise clients. Learn from your peers and internalize the factors that have contributed to their ERP success. |
| February 13, 2007 | Virtualization has taken some of the risk out of trying and testing new platforms and applications. The lower barrier to entry has proven to be exceptionally favorable for Linux, which is making the biggest virtualization-related gains in the server OS market thus far. |
| January 30, 2007 | The HR applications market is evolving. Small and mid-sized enterprises are purchasing HR systems to better serve customers and to replace outdated technology. Cost effectiveness is also driving interest in on-demand solutions. |
| January 16, 2007 | Increasing security concerns and regulatory pressures are driving demand for skilled security professionals in enterprises of all sizes. Dedicated security specialists continue to be in short supply even as the increased demand pulls more individuals into the profession. As a result, supply continues to lag behind demand, and salaries will continue to grow ahead of the average. Enterprises seeking to hire and retain security professionals should adjust IT budgets accordingly. |
| January 2, 2007 | Approximately 12% of Info-Tech's clients are in the healthcare industry. Our research shows that many of these healthcare organizations' IT departments are operating without any peer interaction or benchmarking data. This Trends & Predictions research note is dedicated to IT budget and staffing survey results from 1,600 healthcare respondents. |
| December 12, 2006 | Business Intelligence (BI) is one of the fastest growing enterprise application categories. Pure-play BI vendors are getting a lot of pressure from Microsoft and other large IT vendors. This is bad news for established BI players but good news for customers. Fully understand BI market dynamics to make better BI strategic decisions. |
| November 28, 2006 | IT salaries are rising year by year. The enterprise software segment – particularly applications development – is seeing even higher increases than other IT areas. IT leaders need to understand current salary trends in this key segment to remain competitive employers. |
| November 14, 2006 | The enterprise software market is defined by acquisition. Vendors have always existed in a Darwinian climate of young start-ups being devoured by larger established companies. The climate has recently changed and the size of the companies being devoured is getting bigger. This wave of consolidation is real. |
| October 31, 2006 | Achieving regulatory compliance is not an option – it's the law. There are, however, a number of options for enterprises to attain a compliant posture. But these methods must focus on process. Avoid potential misconceptions regarding methods for achieving regulatory compliance to steer compliance efforts wisely. |
| October 17, 2006 | Different industries innovate in different ways. Looking at spending trends of innovators versus non-innovators in a given industry is one way of identifying potential sources of competitive advantage. This Trends & Predictions report is Part 2 of 2 that examines how enterprises in different industries employ a strategy of innovation to further business objectives. |
| October 3, 2006 | In the majority of cases, enterprises that innovate are better off than those that focus on controlling costs. A recent study conducted by Info-Tech reveals that innovators are more than twice as likely to achieve high growth as cost cutters. This research note is the first of a two-part Trends and Predictions series that examines how enterprises in different industries use a strategy of innovation to achieve strategic advantage. |
| September 19, 2006 | Traditionally, large enterprises have been the only ones able to afford a commercial Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. This trend is changing. Over the next 12 to 24 months, Info-Tech expects a rapid increase in the adoption of CRM solutions within the small and mid-sized enterprise (SME) segment. |
| September 5, 2006 | Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is presented by vendors and the press as an alternative to traditional packaged applications. SaaS is a viable option for many enterprises, but the market as a whole is immature. The vast majority of SaaS vendors are very small (less than $5 million in annual revenue) and will ultimately either be acquired by larger enterprises or fail completely. |
| August 22, 2006 | With more enterprises recognizing the advantages of a mobile workforce, a number of next generation technologies have been contending to become the dominant wide-area wireless access solution. With a combination of technical and cost advantages, WiMAX will be a leading player in the wireless broadband stakes. |
| August 8, 2006 | Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SarbOx) is designed to stop enterprises from punishing employees that blow the whistle on corporate fraud. Although the government tends to rule in favor of employers rather than the whistleblowers, enterprises should still have formal procedures in place for dealing with whistleblower retaliation claims. |
| July 25, 2006 | Processor virtualization using tools such as VMware and Microsoft Virtual Server is being widely used by all but the very smallest enterprises. The trend toward virtualization is proceeding rapidly and vendors are scrambling to keep up. Look for the focus to shift from creation of virtual machines to management of virtual infrastructure. |
| July 11, 2006 | The amount of information that enterprises create and store is growing at an alarming rate. In order to derive business value from this data and gain competitive advantage, decision makers must aggressively manage enterprise information and develop processes for information governance. |
| June 27, 2006 | Over the last two years, the IT security threat landscape has changed significantly. Traditional malware threats hit an apparent wall at the beginning of 2005 and new problems stepped into the void. Understand these trends now in order to prepare security budgets for the future. |
| June 13, 2006 | Info-Tech Research Group's Indaba division recently conducted a survey to assess the security picture and gain deeper insight as to where IT professionals are spending their budgets, on which technologies, and why. |
| May 30, 2006 | Server consolidation will remain a primary focus for IT leaders through to 2008. The spotlight is now shifting to servers left out of the first wave of consolidation triggered by storage needs. |
| May 16, 2006 | The hype surrounding the two-year old Rails framework built for Ruby can mislead IT managers into thinking that they should switch from PHP to Ruby. Trends indicate otherwise. Outside of Rails, there is a dearth of Web development frameworks for Ruby. IT managers should stick with their PHP infrastructure for the next two years. |
| May 2, 2006 | Business analysis is one of the fastest growing disciplines in IT. Demand and salaries are increasing. Whether called business analysts, business systems analysts or systems analysts, the people that perform business analysis are customer-facing and vital to IT-business alignment. |
| April 18, 2006 | Storage Area Networks (SANs) based on iSCSI transport over Ethernet have fully emerged as a mainstream alternative to Fibre Channel (FC) SANs. Info-Tech expects the market for IP SANs to continue to grow by more than 100% per year over the next three years. |
| April 4, 2006 | The growth of wireless connectivity, multimedia, VoIP, and mobile computing has made working from home, in coffee shops, or while on the road a reality for many employees and enterprises. This trend will continue and IT departments must be ready. |
| March 21, 2006 | Presentations by senior business leaders at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium show clearly that leading software vendors have markedly different visions of how software will be purchased, delivered, and used over the next five years. |
| March 7, 2006 | An improving tech sector in 2005 and 2006 means its time for managers to raise their expectations of the value they receive from vendors. Improving vendor margins, consolidation within the industry, and increased competition are all creating opportunities for enterprises to squeeze vendors and demand better value. |
| February 21, 2006 | The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), along with several other groups, recently released its second annual report on software licensing and pricing. Findings from the study help enterprises anticipate how software licensing methods will change over the next several years. |
| February 7, 2006 | Outsourcing is a major strategic initiative that is increasing in popularity. The underlying structure of the industry has recently changed with a flood of new vendors. Despite this change, key success factors remain the same: vendor maturity and a focus on formal processes. |
| January 24, 2006 | University students are early adopters of technology. As a result, university IT departments must be proactive in assessing IT requirements. A review of the emerging trends in technology use among students indicates that network management and storage will remain priorities into 2007. |
| January 10, 2006 | Security spending is a priority, but are companies spending their money on the right security solutions? New hacking strategies are now forcing companies to reassess their security spending strategies. |
| December 13, 2005 | The e-commerce landscape is changing and online transactions are increasing. On any given day, almost 3% of the U.S. population makes an online purchase worth an average of about $30. Search engines are becoming an important vector for driving online sales. |
| November 29, 2005 | IT budgets are on the increase and the IT employment market is very healthy. Info-Tech's analysis indicates that this growth is not a 1999-style boom. IT labor demand will be met by existing supply mechanisms and there will be no dramatic increase in IT salaries. |
| November 15, 2005 | The release of both Longhorn server and Vista has been repeatedly delayed. These delays aren't without precedent. Furthermore, the gap between major releases indicates the relative stability of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. |
| November 1, 2005 | Call center technology is rapidly evolving. Use information on calling patterns and emerging technology trends to plan for this change. |
| October 18, 2005 | Microsoft launched the Trustworthy Computing initiative in 2002 to address market concerns about privacy and security. The initiative has had little impact on the incidence rates of security vulnerabilities in core products such as Windows Server and Internet Explorer. |
| October 4, 2005 | While Really Simple Syndication (RSS) may not yet be a household phrase, the online community is using this new technology to stay current on their topics of choice. RSS is gaining steam among the young and tech-savvy, and a number of vendors are adding this service to their solutions. Info-Tech predicts that RSS will be a mainstream technology in the next 12 months. |
| September 20, 2005 | The IT job market appears to be improving, especially on the U.S. east coast. This quarter, CIOs should rethink current compensation strategies for their IT groups, especially as it equates to corporate loyalty. |
| September 6, 2005 | Sarbanes-Oxley (SarbOx) compliance has forced companies to dig deep in their pockets, leaving some empty handed. Implementing SarbOx best practices may give you a run for your money in the short term, but will help improve business processes in the future. |
| August 23, 2005 | Managing an IT department or division is a daily challenge. Current data is a powerful tool since it gives the ability to make better decisions. Investigate CIO benchmarks and management best practices in this Trends & Predictions report. |
| August 9, 2005 | As the single most important component of your IT systems, servers are the topic of this issue’s Trends & Predictions report. Read on to get a handle on the latest in enterprise server trends and find out about new developments in the server industry. |
| July 26, 2005 | "Spyware" is the catch-all phrase for unwanted or malicious files or programs placed on a users' computer without their explicit consent. Read this Trends & Predictions report to discover how this phenomenon is taking over enterprise and personal computer systems, and to find out what others are doing to combat the problem. |
| July 12, 2005 | Disaster recovery and business continuity planning are significant projects that often get sidelined until it's too late. Don't let the next major disaster event be your reminder. Use this Trends & Predictions report to get up to date on business continuity and disaster recovery best practices, and find out how other companies are faring with this major initiative. |
| June 28, 2005 | Part II of Info-Tech's 2005 e-mail and messaging Trends & Predictions examines the dangers and deficiencies impinging on today's corporate messaging systems. Read this report to find out more about spam, phishing, and other malicious threats confronting users. |
| June 14, 2005 | Researchers are saying that e-mail, the original "killer app" of the Internet, decreases productivity and could actually lower your IQ. Instant Messaging (IM) is running rampant in the enterprise, but remains largely unchecked and ungoverned by formal IM policies. Get the latest on e-mail use, IM, and mobile messaging in this first of two e-mail and messaging Trends & Predictions report. |
| May 31, 2005 | The Guardian is calling blogs "the next big thing," and it's not hard to understand why. While many blogs are frivolous and immature, a growing number are also providing value in enterprise settings. Get the big picture with this Trends & Predictions report. |
| May 17, 2005 | Many organizations have taken the plunge into offshore outsourcing. While some have flourished and gained significant advantage from these initiatives, many have also found the value proposition to be flawed. Use this latest Trends & Predictions report to help you assess the current outsourcing environment. |
| May 3, 2005 | Cost cutting, industry consolidation, and automation are placing high expectations on workers and are decreasing job satisfaction levels. Use this Trends & Predictions report to get to the bottom of employee turnover and find out more about how retention initiatives may help keep competitors at bay. |
| April 19, 2005 | Despite efforts to improve work-life balance and reduce long hours, optimizing workplace productivity continues to be a key challenge for many organizations. Use this Trends & Predictions report to identify some of the relevant issues and opportunities to improve your department's performance. |
| April 5, 2005 | Recent studies show that security issues continue to be cited among the top priorities for CIOs in 2005. Read this Trends & Predictions report to get up to speed on some of the most current trends in IT security. |
| March 22, 2005 | Monitoring search engine optimization and gathering search metrics is becoming a key success factor for many organizations with an online presence. Use this Trends & Predictions report to improve your knowledge of Internet search engine trends and get up to speed on the latest in user search behavior. |
| March 8, 2005 | The recent increase in phishing scams and unauthorized money transfers from online accounts raises both security and liability issues for banks and other financial institutions. Read this Trends & Predictions report for an overview of the online banking environment and an in-depth look at the major security threats facing banks and their clients in 2005. |
| February 22, 2005 | The telecom industry should expect robust growth in 2005. Major themes for the year include VoIP, wireless services, and increased competition among industry players and service providers. Discover all the ins and outs in this Trends & Predictions telecom report. |
| February 8, 2005 | Read this Trends & Predictions report to catch up on some major developments in the PC marketplace and find out what the implications might be for your organization's computing strategy. |
| January 25, 2005 | Most analysts seem to agree that IT spending will experience moderate to strong growth in the range of five to seven percent in 2005. Get a detailed picture of IT spending and budgeting projections for the upcoming year with this Trends & Predictions report. |
| January 11, 2005 | As the head of IT, see how well you and your peers performed last year and find out how your experience as CIO compared against general trends. Use the findings presented in this Trends & Predictions report to take a good hard look in the mirror and identify areas for improvement in 2005. |
| October 5, 2004 | Offshore outsourcing has been gaining a lot of steam lately. This is partly because it is a hot political topic during the final stretches of the U.S. Presidential election, but also because many managers feel that it makes good economic sense. Get the latest developments in offshoring and overseas IT markets, such as India, in this Trends & Predictions report. |
| September 21, 2004 | Both on the consumer side, and at an enterprise level, Voice over IP (VoIP) is picking up steam and becoming an increasingly popular cost-effective alternative to traditional telephony systems. Get the latest VoIP market forecasts and industry stats in this Trends & Predictions report. |
| September 7, 2004 | While the IT job market is finally showing signs of improvement, workplace morale among IT staff has hit an all-time low. Get the latest information on IT employment trends, staffing ratios, and compensation statistics in this much-anticipated Trends & Predictions report. |
| August 24, 2004 | With SCO losing its first lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler over the use of Linux, companies are starting to show renewed confidence in open source software. Get the latest open source and Linux facts and figures in this Trends & Predictions report. |
| August 10, 2004 | As an IT executive, you likely play some role in facilitating marketing initiatives. Instead of finding yourself out of your element, get up to speed with the latest in online marketing trends. Come to the table prepared and knowledgeable with statistics and figures from this issue's Trends & Predictions report. |
| July 28, 2004 | In January 2004, the U.S. government released CAN-SPAM, aimed at ending spam once and for all. Unfortunately, the new law has had little effect. Since January, the amount of spam has continued to grow at an alarming rate and the proper means of slowing it down are still unclear to most companies and ISPs. Get the latest spam statistics with this Trends & Predictions report. |
| May 26, 2004 | Identity theft is emerging as a major concern among American and European consumers and businesses alike. With the number of phishing attacks on the rise and growing concerns over SSL encryption, consumers, financial institutions, and merchants must all employ the appropriate measures necessary to safeguard sensitive information. Read this Trends & Predictions report to get the latest developments in identity theft. |
| May 12, 2004 | Computer viruses are deadly foes that drain companies across the globe of billions of dollars a year. While you may not always be able to stop their propagation, you can improve your knowledge of virus-related activities in the hopes of improving your network security. Get the latest from this Trends & Prediction's report. |
| April 14, 2004 | Many CIOs are finally coming around and are beginning to show some optimism with regards to IT hiring. It's a minor improvement, but a welcome one. Read this Trends & Predictions report to get the latest hiring developments, including a look at overall market trends, the IT skills most in demand, the most active industries, employee turnover trends, and the effects of offshore outsourcing on the U.S. job market. |
| February 18, 2004 | Announcements last year that Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Defense are requiring their suppliers to adopt Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology by 2005 has businesses scrambling to investigate the feasibility of such an implementation. Use this Trends & Predictions report to get the latest industry buzz on RFID technology |
| January 21, 2004 | With the recent introduction of CAN-SPAM in the U.S., and similar laws in Europe and Australia, the fight against spam has once again taken center stage. Use this Trends & Predictions report to get the latest stats and info you need to strengthen your case against this e-mail epidemic. |
