Forrester: IT to cut back on mundane maintenance

Technology execs may have finally gotten tired of setting aside 70 percent of their infrastructure budgets to keep the lights on, according to a Forrester Research report. If Forrester is right, there will be a key sea change ahead.

The typical IT thinking dictated that 70 percent or so of IT budgets went to maintenance and support with the remainder going toward innovation. In 2010, Forrester expects that only half of your IT budget will go to maintenance with 30 percent going to innovation. That 20 percent remainder will go toward business expansion.

Forrester analyst Robert Whiteley noted that infrastructure and operations spending typically accounts for half of the IT budget. In a nutshell, IT infrastructure spending needs to set itself up for growth. The problem: Spending half of the IT infrastructure budget and the data center (server, storage, networking) and the remainder on user technology (desktops, laptops and mobile devices) isn't going to cut it. Infrastructure spending is going to have to carve out space for innovation and projects that grow the business.

Read more of "IT infrastructure spending to cut back on mundane maintenance, says Forrester" at ZDNet.com.