Cutter Benchmark Review has conducted its IT Trends 2008 survey. Which technologies and IT trends are enduring? Which ones are emerging? According to CBR Editor and Cutter Senior Consultant Gabriele Piccoli, the results "offer both opportunities to cheer and some reasons to worry. Here's a look at some of the results:
Virtualization: 61% of respondents indicate their companies are currently using virtualization tools, a 9% increase over last year's results. The greatest use of virtualization tools is for application testing and development (42%), followed by system patches and update testing (25%), and production (25%).
Security: The number of companies concerned with intrusion detection has jumped 24% from 2006 to 2008. All of that gain has gone toward networked-based systems, which are more than twice as likely to be employed as host-based or target-specific technologies.
Open Source: As many as 65% of respondents say their organization has deployed open source systems -- a 16% increase over the last two years.
Outsourcing: Cutter's 2008 survey shows that 55% of respondents have or are planning to outsource work -- a 7% increase since 2007. The types of work being outsourced include development work (78%), maintenance work (64%), and help desk support (49%). In 2007, only 38% of respondents outsourced the help desk. That number has jumped to 49% in 2008.
Backsourcing: The number of respondents who are considering backsourcing is down 10% from 2007. A total of 39% of respondents indicate that their organization is considering backsourcing in 2008.
IT Staffing Plans: Despite the recent economic turmoil, 55% of respondents expect to be hiring IT staff in 2008. While another 36% of respondents expect no changes in their IT staffing plans, the remaining 9% expect to be downsizing.
Service-Oriented Architecture: 57% of respondents say their organization has implemented an SOA initiative or program, a 6% increase over 2007. The primary drivers behind today's SOA initiatives are: to increase IT's responsiveness to business demand (73%), to reduce cost of IT operations (58%), to exploit strategic competitive opportunities (51%), and to retire legacy technology (33%). The highest-level champion of SOA initiatives is the CIO at 35%; followed by the EVP, SVP, and VP at 19%; and then the CEO at 17%. There are significant impediments to the adoption/expansion of SOA in the organization, according to 61% of respondents. The reasons cited include a lack of visible ROI (31%), a lack of alignment with business strategies (25%), a lack of business buy-in (23%), and insufficient sponsorship (23%).
Enterprise Architecture: 61% of surveyed individuals indicate their organization has an EA initiative underway, an increase of 6% since 2007. The most common driver for EA requirements is the imperative to reduce cost (51%), followed by alignment to a defined enterprise business architecture (47%), and a formal development of enterprise business requirements (37%). Central IT groups have taken a 22% jump to be the most common owner of requirements for EA (39%), followed by IT director or executive (16%). Only 12% of enterprise-level business groups and 7% of business units are responsible for EA requirements.
Emerging Trends:
Enterprise 2.0: 8% of respondents indicate their organization has already launched an Enterprise 2.0 initiative, while 7% are in the implementation planning stage, 18% are doing early experimentation, and 34% are still gathering information. A full 33% of respondents say their organization is not actively pursuing Enterprise 2.0 initiatives at all.
Web 2.0: Only 5% of respondents say that their organization has already begun using Web 2.0 to interact with customers. Another 12% are in the implementation planning stage, 25% are doing early experimentation, and 31% are still gathering information. 28% of respondents specify that their organization is not currently pursuing using Web 2.0 to interact with customers.
Mashups: Mashups initiatives have already been launched by just 2% of respondent organizations, while 3% are in the implementation planning stage, 21% are doing early experimentation, 19% are gathering information, and 56% have not actively pursued mashups at all.
IT's Role in Business Innovation: The IT organization's role in business innovation is foremost reactive to business innovation initiatives, according to 38% of respondents. Another 35% of respondents view IT's role as a key enabler for business innovation. Just 15% of respondents indicate that business innovation is not a role for their IT department -- a 6% decline from 2007.
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1 comment:
Although a very high percentage report availing virtualization; there is no presence of data storage in the breakup of the 61%.
Maybe virtualization and an SOA go hand-in-hand. The rise in security concerns will naturally increase as networks increase.
Overall the list is a fair indicator of industry trends.
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