Jenny Thomas
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Worldwide ERM Software Sales Growing Fast in 2011
June 27, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreThis year has brought a lot of encouraging economic recovery news to the IT market, and here comes another bright spot. According to IDC, the worldwide enterprise resource management (ERM) applications market year-over-year revenue growth of 4.6 percent in the second half of 2010, and that trend is continuing into 2011.
It’s not unexpected that companies with money to spend would be looking to put it toward integrating disparate systems, which would hopefully free up more dollars for other projects in the long-term. The number of dollars predicted to pour into this market is a little surprising. IDC forecasts
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The Good Word on U.S. SMB IT Spending
June 20, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreWhen more and more people are saying the same thing, it’s gotta be true. Right? Participants in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market–including the companies themselves and the vendors that supply thing to them–are certainly hoping so as more good news comes from a recent study by IDC.
According to the IDC, IT spending growth has returned more rapidly than expected since the recession officially ended in 2009. IDC’s recent forecast found the nearly 8 million SMBs in the United States will spend more than $125 billion on advanced technology in 2011, an increase from approximately $120 billion
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Big Data is the Big Daddy of Priorities for Midmarket CIOs
June 13, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read more“Go Big or Go Home” is fast-becoming the new battle cry heard from midmarket IT departments around the globe. The demand by companies for better analytics, i.e., the ability to extract actionable insights from “Big Data,” was cited as the number one priority in a recent survey of midmarket chief information officers (CIOs) by IBM.
Midsize businesses, together with small enterprises, are responsible for nearly 65 percent of the global GDP, representing more than 90 percent of all businesses and employing over 90 percent of the world’s workforce, so their desire for better analytics isn’t all that surprising. Like
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IBM Encourages BPs to Get Smarter About Mobile and Social Computing
June 13, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreOur motto at IT Jungle is to “survive, adapt, and thrive,” and that is a fitting mantra for many businesses trying to make it in today’s economy. To survive, companies must adapt to changing technology, and nothing is changing faster than the opportunities brought on by mobile and social computing.
IBM is looking to help business partners (BPs) adjust to shifting buying patterns brought on by mobile and social computing by expanding its Smarter Commerce initiative, which delivers software and services to help companies get their brand wherever a customer might be shopping, be it on partner Web sites, social
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Blue Skies Are Gonna Cloud Up
May 23, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreNot long ago, a prediction for cloudy skies was something we heard from our local weatherperson, and all it meant was you might want to keep an umbrella handy. But today’s cloudy forecast is courtesy of Big Blue, and, according to its new global study, those clouds are rolling in fast.
In a recent IBM survey of CIOs, 60 percent of organizations said they are ready to embrace cloud computing over the next five years as a means of growing business and achieving competitive advantage. This figure nearly doubles the number of CIOs who said they would utilize cloud in
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Freelancers Wanted: Outsourcing Opportunities for Job Seekers
May 16, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreWe have been reporting on the promising trend in IT jobs since the beginning of the year, but if you’re among the 9 percent of Americans still in the unemployed category, or unemployed anywhere else on the globe for that matter, there may be some opportunities that are right for you in the freelance marketplace.
Freelancer.com is a Website based in Australia that is designed to connect businesses with “independent service providers” and freelancers. The site began in 2004, and claims that since its launch there have been more than 1 million job postings and more than 2 million users,
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Gartner Takes Aim at the Middleware Market
May 2, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreAll signs continue to point to a bullish 2011, which has already brought news of rising spending and increased hiring within the IT industry. Server and storage sales were up as 2010 came to a close, and the latest prediction from the analysts at Gartner indicates the application infrastructure and middleware (AIM) market is also on an upward trend.
Gartner recently reported the worldwide AIM software revenue market totaled $17.6 billion in 2010, which is a 7.3 percent increase over 2009, when AIM revenue grew 3.4 percent and reached $16.4 billion.
According to Gartner, the AIM market has a dozen
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SMBs Growing More Confident About IT Budgets and Plans
April 11, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreIT budgets and hiring plans have hit their highest levels in 18 months among small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), according to a new survey by Spiceworks, a social business network for IT.
The State of SMB IT survey included over 3,000 respondents from 128 countries who work in SMBs, which are defined as companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. Of the respondents, 30 percent were from North America, 28 percent from EMEA, 26 percent from Asia/Pacific, and 8 percent from Latin America.
The survey, which was conducted in January and February of this year, found that this segment of
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Gartner Pads 2011 Spending Forecast with Media Tablets
April 4, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreMedia tablets, such as the iPad, are all the rage in the marketplace right now, and after adding them into the computing hardware spending mix analysts at Gartner have increased their outlook for IT spending in 2011 from a previous forecast of 5.1 percent growth to a 5.6 percent bump.
We previously reported that things were looking up for worldwide IT spending this year, but media tablets are clearly a game changer in 2011. This seemingly small increase of a half point created by the addition of media tablets and the falling exchange rate of the U.S. dollar actually totals
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IBM Settles Lawsuit with SEC Over Shady Overseas Dealings
March 21, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreA covert meeting in a deserted parking lot. A shopping bag stuffed with nearly $20,000 in cash is exchanged. A quick handshake to seal the deal and the two parties head off in different directions.
It sounds like a scene straight out of the movies. It’s also a description from a complaint recently filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to activities by employees of IBM-Korea, LG IBM PC Co., Ltd., a joint venture in which IBM held a majority interest, IBM (China) Investment Company Limited, and IBM-China.
The complaint, which you can see here, alleges