Putting numbers behind IT budget woes

The economic news has been bad, very bad. Every week, there are articles predicting how the downturn will affect the IT industry, jobs and budgets. And as those in the industry know, IT is taking a hit. The latest projection comes from CIO.com which found, in an October survey of 243 technology leaders, that 40 percent of CIOs plan to cut their budgets from last year's level.

The first targets of the cuts will be contractors and discretionary technology projects. Seventy-two percent of IT leaders responding to the survey said they have postponed or will postpone discretionary projects. In addition, 46 percent of survey respondents are already letting open positions go unfilled.

"Until September, we thought the economy would recover in the back half of 2009. Now, not a prayer," says Rick Belmonte, CIO at Lowe Enterprises, a real estate development firm. Belmonte has deferred all new technology development projects until 2010.

For more on economic headaches:
- check out this CIO.com article

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