FierceCIO's top five stories of the year
It's been quite a year. We were all going along minding our own business, and then the economy tanked. And in a remarkably historical event, the first African American was elected President of the United States in 2008. With the economy still in peril and President-elect Barack Obama already signaling that he's going to be different, especially in technology, big change is in the air.
For enterprise information technology, the marketplace is definitely changing rapidly, requiring constant repositioning and evaluating what works, what doesn't and how to keep your operation humming in these difficult times. CIO's were under constant pressure in 2008, and had to be far more than just IT managers and experts on software applications, in order to succeed. The coming year will bring even greater challenges.
The past year brought us cutbacks in IT budgets and employment, and a search for lower cost approaches to problem-solving. Ambitious IT projects were put on hold or scrapped for many companies in 2008, as IT executives sought to find the best formula for their businesses and their departments.
CIOs saw many other trends in 2008. Cloud computing gained increased currency, as did Web 2.0 technologies. Security continued to be a major problem, with serious data breaches and intruders growing by the week and spam, an annoying everyday part of life. Even the presidential campaign computer systems for Obama and Republican John McCain faced intrusions, while GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's email was hacked.
Bill Gates retired from Microsoft, which tried to compete with Apple by airing hip new television commercials featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld. But nothing changed when it came to Microsoft's Vista operating system. It's still causing fits for many CIOs; it frequently needs security patches and glitches are more common than one would expect, or like. Google continued to make inroads in the marketplace as others, like Yahoo, have faltered. IT startups were put on hold because they lacked financing, and Silicon Valley began feeling the economic pain.
As energy prices spiked earlier in the year, green technology became the order of the day, and hopefully will be the trend for 2009 and beyond. Many CIOs made adjustments to their data centers, or at least explored new options, to cut back on growing energy costs and the pollution that contributes to global warming. There were also new options for outsourcing data storage that attracted a great deal of interest. More attention was also paid to e-Discovery tools, in 2008. Many CIOs are aware that in the event of a lawsuit, document recovery would be a requirement, and that means having the right software in place.
There was a continued, but unsuccessful, push by the IT sector to increase the number of foreign workers available under the federal government's H-1B visa program. The outsourcing of IT jobs continued, with a recent study estimating that as many as one quarter of IT jobs at global 1000 firms may be moving offshore by 2010.
The most remarkable aspect about the 2008 presidential election, for the IT community, is that Obama appears to be a man who understands the importance of technology, and wants to see IT expansion and innovation, as an engine to help drive the economy and improve America's place in the world. He's been told he can't use his BlackBerry and email for security reasons, but that should not stop the new president from encouraging others to go the hi-tech route.
One of Obama's top priorities is naming a chief technology officer (CTO) to guide the United States government into uncharted waters. We're eagerly waiting for this appointment, knowing government policy will have a big influence on the private sector. Obama also said he planned early next year to more closely engage the nation's technology community to ''harness technology and innovation to create jobs, enhance America's competitiveness and advance our national priorities.''
All of that sounds good to us, especially in such gloomy economic times. If there is to be a rebound, IT will have to be big part of the equation, and hopefully the nation and the industry will be much stronger at this time in 2009.
This is FierceCIO's last newsletter of 2008. We will resume publishing on Monday, January 5, 2009. In the meantime, here's FierceCIO's list of top five articles for 2008. We'd like to hear from you when you read an article you like, agree with or find troubling. We welcome your ideas and comments, and have a great holiday season. - Judi
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