How to Prioritize IT Spending During an Economic Recession - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

How to Prioritize IT Spending During an Economic Recession -

This is an interesting summary of what to do in a tightening economy. By continuing to invest wisely in IT during a downturn, an organization strengthens its long-term future.

The article has various tips for IT cost-cutting--both big and small--including outsourcing, staffing, consolidation of data centers and storage and server virtualization.

TechCrunch Euro Tour 08: Yes, even Belgium has startups

TechCrunch Euro Tour 08: Yes, even Belgium has startups:

Mike Butcher of TechCrunch came to Belgium (actually he came to Gent, and wrote this about the most pleasant city in Belgium: "Gent is quickly becoming one of the main places to startup in that country, as it’s a short drive from Brussels (which has the main airport and the excellent Eurostar), but Gent is cheaper, somewhat prettier and is a big university city with lots more potential talent to draw from.").

The real reason he came here was to do a writeup on the Web 2.0/Mobile startups here in Belgium.

You can find his report at http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/21/techcrunch-euro-tour-08-yes-even-belgium-has-startups/

Gartner says 85 percent of companies using open source

It was a bit of a surprise to me to see such a high number in this ZDnet article, but this is a global study across the Asia/Pacific, Europe and North American markets. Gartner points out that companies should have a governance process to identify and manage the potential intellectual property risk. Finally, companies should be aware that although open source software is free, this does not mean that it has no cost ...

The study says that 85 percent of companies are already using open-source software, with most of the remaining 15 percent expecting to do so within the next year, according to analysts at Gartner. In terms of the business processes for which open-source software is being used, customer service headed Gartner's list, although enterprise integration, finance and administration and business analytics also showed strongly.

Follow-up: CIO.com has an article about this pervasiveness of open source, and concludes that Gartner is urging companies to adopt and enforce open source software (OSS) policies.

See how the BlackBerry Storm compares to the Apple iPhone

Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Storm has been one of the most widely anticipated IT products of 2008, and this is what Jason Hiner of http://sanity.techrepublic.com/ has to say about how well it stacks up against the iPhone as a business device... (also check out Jason's bloopers at the end of this video)

GARTNER Predictions for 2008-2009 in IT

Here is a presentation by Robert Langlois on Gartner's IT-related predictions for 2008-2009

The pdf file is at http://www.ceim.org/pages/doc/pdf/predictionsTI.pdf

clipped from www.ceim.org Robert Langlois will summarize Gartner’s view of major IT trends for the next years and transform our perception of the sector, providing invaluable incite on how to position ourselves, today and in the future. To see the PowerPoint Presentation.  Robert Langlois Vice President, Executive Partner GARTNER