Security moves back into top 5 IT priorities
With Labor Day weekend quickly vanishing into a memory, the team has just finished compiling this month's IT priorities data. The big news is that what happened last month with security is now pretty much undone. It is back in the top 5 list, just barely edging out IT management for the fifth position (it was in fourth back in July). Software infrastructure and hardware upgrades also swapped positions and are in second and third respectively. As usual, wired and wireless projects are up on top as organizations buy into data and voice network convergence and install wireless networking equipment. Overall, things are looking good. According to the US Commerce Department, in Q2 2005, businesses spent 17.3% more on computers and peripheral equipment than they did in Q2 2004.
September IT Priorities of large organizations:
- Wired and wireless: networking projects, in particular IP telephony, are the number one ongoing initiative for over two years running.
- Hardware upgrades is now the number two top priority as organizations deploy storage area networks (SAN).
- Software infrastructure comes in next with most attention placed on ERP upgrades.
- Web technology keeps its fourth place ranking this month with renewed interest in e-commerce and Web services.
- Security, which dropped to sixth place last month, moved up one spot with many respondents concerned about spyware. The recent Zotob scare will likely keep security in place for some time.
- IT management moves down to sixth as IT managers focus in on process improvements like ITIL and begin to see through the short term hype of outsourcing to weigh in on the long term impact.
- Data management is the next priority as companies work to get the most intelligence out of their data warehouses.
- OS migration is the eighth priority with many organizations migrating to Windows 2003 and Linux.
- The final priority, application development, rounds out the list according to our data as companies reap the benefits of integration.