Spending and Budgeting

Watch out for inaccurate web costs

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:59:58 -0400

With the business climate uncertain, CIOs may be looking to cut costs and considering reducing their IT departments' training budgets. But an online survey conducted by Zoomerang on behalf of Safari Books Online, a web-based digital library geared toward technology professionals, found that technology staff reported needing access to good training and reliable online content to do their jobs efficiently and to prevent costly mistakes.

The survey found that 85 percent of respondents spend up to two hours a day searching the web for code samples, product reviews, answers to questions about troubleshooting applications, and other key issues. At the same time, 45 percent said they have used information from the web that they later found was incorrect.

To read more:
- Check out this ComputerWorld.com article

Is your web project over budget?

Thu, 29 May 2008 06:59:58 -0400

CIOs beware: If you are developing new web projects in-house or outsourcing the work, be ready to deal with cost overruns and delays. A new study conducted by software developer New Bamboo found a quarter of web projects do not meet their budgets, and 31 percent are delivered late. The reason: Frequently changing requirements, too many stakeholders with conflicting visions and not enough money or time allocated to the projects.

For more insight into web project problems:
- see this CIO.com article

Energy costs force workplace changes

Tue, 27 May 2008 06:59:59 -0400

The high and ever-increasing cost of gasoline and airline tickets will mean less travel for corporate employees, changes in work patterns and greater reliance on IT departments.

In interviews at Forrester Research Inc.'s IT Forum 2008 conference in Las Vegas, about a dozen IT managers and senior staff told Computerworld that their companies either are exploring or implementing telecommuting options to assist employees, as well as turning to virtual-meeting technologies, like video conferencing, to save money.

To read more about impact of energy on your budget:
- see this Computerworld.com article

Number of open-source code defects going down

Paul Mah — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:54:22 -0400

The results of a two-year study commissioned by the Department of Homeland Defense (DHS) on the quality of programming code in open-source projects have been released. The entire audit was founded on concerns that open-sourced software, though widely deployed, was never subjected to a systematic audit. On that basis, a budget was allocated in 2006 to specifically develop automated static analysis tools to vet open-sourced projects.

The results were gratifying. From an average of 0.30 defects per thousand lines of code (LOC) in 2006, the average defect density has fallen to 0.25 defects per thousand LOC. This represents a 16 percent reduction of defect density achieved over a span of just two years--a notable gain in quality. Obviously, there is no easy way to determine just how "exploitable" each flaw was, though the DHS's original goal to harden open-source applications seems to be achieved.

For more on this DHS-sponsored audit:
- check out this Ars Technica article

Dell to replace European Vostro keyboards

Mehan Jayasuriya — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:53:46 -0400

It's already been established that Dell's Vostro lineup for SMBs isn't for everyone, but apparently Europeans have more to dislike about the budget-priced laptops than their friends across the pond. Word is that the company shipped Vostro 1310 and 1510 units to Europe, the Middle East and Africa with non-standard keyboards that were difficult for touch-typists used to the standard QWERTY layout to use. Luckily, it looks like the company is committed to righting the wrong and has promised new keyboards for customers with affected units. If you're one of them, be sure to hit the link below for full info on Dell's replacement program.

For more on the keyboard issue:
- see this Direct 2 Dell blog post

Big firms could slash 40 percent from IT

Thu, 01 May 2008 06:59:59 -0400

For CIOs and their IT employees at Global 1000 companies, it may not seem like your department's budget is bloated, given all the needs and the long wish list. Yet, the Hackett Group, a research firm, said tough economic times require cutbacks. At the big global companies--those with at least $23.4 billion in revenue and 56,000 employees--between eight percent and 39 percent of baseline spending can be cut, Hackett says, by making application maintenance, application development and implementation, end user support and infrastructure management processes more efficient. Hackett executives say that most companies are surprised by how much they can actually save. "I've seen companies take out 50 percent of their IT operating costs over a few years," says Erik Dorr, Hackett's senior IT research director.

To learn more about cost-cutting strategies:
- See this CIO Magazine article

IT distributors see slowdown

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:59:59 -0400

Distributors of IT equipment are beginning to see a slowdown in sales, a sign of the difficult economic conditions that CIOs and IT professionals are experiencing in their own daily work lives. Arrow, Avnet and Ingram Micro all reported that they did not meet their own expectations or those of analysts and that sluggish sales are the result of a decline in the budgets of IT purchasers.

Arrow and Avnet reported lower-than-expected server sales. Meanwhile, Ingram Micro's CEO said the company was surprised by a flatness in sales at the end of the quarter while Avnet found that its enterprise servers were especially hard-hit. The bottom line: IT departments are holding back on big capital purchases for major projects, although other IT sales so far seem unaffected.

For more on this troubling trend:
- See this Channel Insider article

Get hip to IT alignment

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:59:58 -0400

IT alignment will save you money if you know what you are doing. But plenty of CIOs don't have a clue what IT alignment really is. Once they get it, they will understand that they can use this technique to strategically build business value. Here's how to make it work:

Develop a written list of the company's strategic business goals.
Plan to redeploy IT.
Audit a completed project.
Get other C-level executives on board to use IT as a strategic catalyst.

For more on using IT alignment:
- See this CIO Magazine article

For more tech stories from the Fierce CIO network:
> Firewire gets faster but not fast enough. Article
> Layoff watch: Symantec. Article
> In Russia, BlackBerry eats you. Article

IT contract jobs shrinking

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:59:59 -0400

The IT contractor market is losing its luster. The latest poll of Silicon.com's CIO jury panel finds that the majority are planning to reduce spending on IT contractors this year. Once a lucrative market for freelance IT talent, tech departments are dealing with shrinking budgets that once gave them ample funds to go outside to get temporary help. But with threat of a recession, everything is potentially on the block. Are you there yet? Let us know if you are finding less money to hire outside IT contractors and are forced to turn back to your overworked staff.

For more on job loss coming for IT contractors:
- See this Silicon.com article

Windows XP to live on...kinda

Mehan Jayasuriya — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:13:38 -0400

With Windows XP's execution date of June 30 inching ever closer, more than a few enterprises are starting to get nervous about how they're going to get their XP fix. While Microsoft has yet to announce a full stay of execution (which many are hoping for), they are expected to announce that they will continue selling the venerable OS to OEMs selling a very specific type of product: cheap, ultraportable laptops. It makes sense if you think about it; after all, the Eee PC is just starting to catch on and most cheap ultraportables aren't well enough equipped to run Vista. "Vista is just too resource-hungry for laptops with limited storage space, relatively minute amounts of RAM, and slow CPUs," Ars Technica writes. "Extending the availability of Windows XP for the budget laptop category is currently the company's best alternative to ceding this market to Linux."

For more on the coming stay:
- see this Ars Technica article