“Seattle’s chief technology officer, Bill Schrier, is bracing for a 6 percent budget cut in 2012, bigger than this year’s, a sign of tighter spending that indicates slower sales gains for Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp.,” Dina Bass reports for Bloomberg.
“Schrier is likely to be told to cut even more next year, so he’s delaying upgrades to Microsoft’s Windows 7, cutting services contracts from International Business Machines Corp. and seeking cheaper alternatives to gear from Cisco Systems Inc.,” Bass reports. “Belt-tightening in the biggest city in the Pacific Northwest reflects a larger trend: Financial-services companies such as Western & Southern Financial Group and governments, including the state of California, will cut or leave spending on information technology unchanged next year as economic growth slows.”
Bass reports, “That means some technology bellwethers, including Intel, Microsoft, IBM and Cisco, may suffer.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
One of the biggest wastes of Tax Dollars is when the Government “upgrades” from Office 20xx to 20xx. Noting new since 2003 and they keep charging $500 a pop. Don’t even get me started on “upgrades” to Windows…
The vastly larger ‘limits’ that Excel Pivot Tables in 2007 can handle vs. Excel 2003 make the upgrade cost well worth it in my book!
I have not received an error of “Not enough memory to completely display PivotTable.” since going to 2007.
If you are not using the hell out of pivot tables in Excel then really you can get by just fine using Open Office Calc imho
Bass reports, “That means some technology bellwethers, including Intel, Microsoft, IBM and Cisco, may suffer.”
Meanwhile, I’ll be buying the family iMacs, iPads, and iPhones for Christmas.
Furthermore, I’ll be getting the daughter an Apple lappy in 2013 as she heads off to college.
There’s really no need to involve MS, IBM or Cisco in all this.
The family knows what they want…
“Meanwhile, I’ll be buying the family iMacs, iPads, and iPhones for Christmas.
Furthermore, I’ll be getting the daughter an Apple lappy in 2013 as she heads off to college.”
This is the real post-PC age.
btw, yes, i know that this is a story re: about gov’t spending cuts, but the fact remains that ‘private sector’ consumers can use their disposable income to use tech products that *they* like; this, very often, means Apple kit.
As more and more workers use personally owned gear (iPhone / iPads / Apple lappys) for work, more pressure will be put on corp / gov’t IT to accommodate them. This means less need for MS / IBM / Cisco, et al.
Just sayin’…
On of the biggest wastes in municipal IT budgets is cell phones.
Governments issue their employees crappy cell phones, so the employees buy iPhones on their own dime and forward all calls to their personal iPhone. Governments would be better off giving their employees a $500/year stipend for mobile telecom for them to use any way the employee sees fit.
I have first hand experience with the above headline.
Last week in our small city which is a 100% Windows shop, our City Manager announced that he wants as many of our new computers to be iPads as possible. He figures iPads cost half the price of Windows PC and are better for use in police cars and in other places where laptops are appropriate.
This guy, who is totally a Windows guy, almost made me fall off my chair.