CIOs See Economic

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Most chief information officers (CIOs) of companies in India expect the current economic slowdown to end by December, according to a survey conducted by IT research and consulting firm IDC India. While about 66 per cent of respondents expect relief from the crisis by end-2009, IDC India said it expects the slowdown to extend and sees a revival in IT spending after June 2010, due to the macro economic picture and a lag in IT buying. The survey of 467 CIOs across mid-sized and large enterprises in 18 industries found that their focus was shifting to better management of existing IT infrastructure from building new capacities, IDC said in a statement. Companies plan to spend about 20 per cent of the total planned IT expenditure on new purchases in 2009, with the balance reserved for managing the existing set-up, IDC added. The CIOs surveyed see software-as-a-service, business outsourcing and data warehousing, unified communications, virtualisation and open source as the emerging investment priorities in 2009. For 2009, investments in personal computers, servers and computer peripherals are seen falling 20-40 per cent from last year, directly impacting hardware vendors and off-the-shelf software vendors, according to conclusions from the survey. (Reuters)