IT spending shifts to business continuity, services, but Linux not in the picture—European survey evidence - News Review

Rethink IT, Nov, 2003

* IT spending shifts to business continuity, services, but Linux not in the picture--European survey evidence

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 in pride of place, with 53% saying that they MUST act on it soon. These are just some of the results from a survey of CIOs across Europe by Rethink Research.

CIO Business Spending Priorities--Trends 2004 also covers spending plans in mobile, ERR 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% of respondents planning to outsource some or all of their IT department and two thirds of those wanting to do it in a hurry.

And if you run an outsourcing company, head for France, because there the outsourcing mania is cited by as many as 85% of CIOs.

ERP systems are set to begin receiving upgrades and 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 the respondents (53%) believe the business performance of their own vertical market is improving in 2003, and while the optimism is spread across different sectors, there are marked national differences. These range from 81% of UK panelists who can see improvement in their market, to 35% 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, and 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.

For a copy of the executive summary of CIO Business Spending Priorities--Trends 2004, email peter@rethinkresearch.biz