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By Mel Duvall
Chief information officers will face IT budgets that are stuck at 2005 levels, forecasts research firm Gartner.
In a report released Tuesday, Gartner predicted that IT budgets will essentially be flat or rise slightly in 2010, but when the deep cuts of 2009 are taken into account, four years of budget increases have essentially been wiped out. As a result, CIOs will be left with the same level of resources they had in 2005.
Overall, Gartner predicts IT budgets will increase by a global average of 1.3 percent in 2010. That compares to the 8.1 percent decline in budgets CIOs had to juggle in 2009.
"2009 was the most challenging year for CIOs in the corporate and public sectors as they faced multiple budget cuts, delayed spending and increased demand for services with reduced resources," said Mark McDonald, Gartner's group vice president and head of the firm's executive program practice. "This is set to change in 2010, as the economy transitions from recession to recovery and enterprises transition their strategies from cost-cutting efficiency to value creating productivity."
The forecast, which was put together based on a worldwide survey of CIOs from September to December 2009, found that while technologies are transitioning from "heavy" owner-operated solutions to "lighter-weight" services, CIOs are, in turn, transitioning IT beyond merely managing resources to taking responsibility for managing results.
"Transitioning gives the enterprise and IT the opportunity to reposition themselves and exploit the tough corrective actions taken during the recession," McDonald said. "CIOs see 2010 as an opportunity to accelerate IT's transition from a support function to strategic contributor focused on innovation and competitive advantage."
"They have aspired to this shift for years, but economic, strategic, and technological changes have only recently made it feasible," he added.
Gartner released a list of the top ten business and technology priorities for the year, based on its survey of 1,586 CIOs. The technology priorities are:
1. Virtualization
2. Cloud computing
3. Web 2.0
4. Networking, voice and data communications
5. Business intelligence
6. Mobile technologies
7. Data/document management and storage
8. Service-oriented applications and architecture
9. Security technologies
10. IT management
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