Altiris' Customer Advisory Board 2008 Priorities

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween. I'm sure you would have enjoyed my costume. I was that well-known superhero "Bubble Wrap Man."

I recently got some interesting information from the Altiris (a business unit of Symantec) Customer Advisory Board which was held at Altiris' Manage Fusion in Orlando, FL, a few weeks ago.

CAB members were asked what their top spending priorities were for 2008. while the sample size is very small and it really isn't an unbiased sample (after all the respondents were members of Altiris' CAB). That being said, the responses are interesting even if they can not be considered representative of the views of the whole market.

Here's a list of their priorities.

Top 2008 spending priorities according to the CAB:

• PDA sprawl. Management of mobile devices.
• Virtualization support – specifically managing and deploying virtual alongside physical.
• Data leakage prevention.
• Data archival (specifically e-mail) and retrieval for compliance purposes.
• Offshore enablement – technology to more easily ramp and sustain outsourcing.
• Encryption.
• Identity Management.
• Greening of IT – ways to reduce power and cooling costs.
• Single sign on – still struggling with password management.
• Network caching/bandwidth management – ability to preposition content near endpoints to limit bandwidth requirements

What are your organization's priorities for 2008? Is this list even close to your list?