Technology investment in 2007

Flexible infrastructure set to drive technology investment in 2007

Real-time infrastructure: * Profit will rule * Acceleration of Open Source * Adoption of business process outsourcing

Unisys believes that real-time infrastructure (RTI) will be a key factor driving IT investment in 2007. And it will in turn influence the ever-increasing uptake of Open Source solutions, drive business process outsourcing (BPO) and deliver financial returns to organisations.

RTI is the ability to provide applications on the fly: to virtualise resources, to employ servers cost-effectively, and to make better use of storage.

Brett Hodgson, managing director Unisys New Zealand said, "RTI will be more broadly adopted as it provides the infrastructure needed by the CIO at the investment levels needed by the CFO. This brings a new flexibility and accountability into IT planning and management."

Improved profit will be the new rule for technology infrastructure In the past, IT investment has been based on infrastructure development rather than financial and organisational goals. This has made it difficult to match organisational needs with IT service delivery.

IT will no longer be seen as an 'end in itself'. Management won't focus on the technology as much as how it supports the organisation. IT infrastructure managers will focus more on what the organisation needs - that is, people, processes, hardware and software - rather than 'utility computing' or 'on-demand computing'.

RTI will accelerate the use of Open Source

Traditionally, CIOs have agonised over the conundrum: Open Source or proprietary solution? Windows or Linux? Painstaking analysis and introspection have been undertaken to make what was a momentous choice with major implications for the IT infrastructure.

Naturally, many CIOs have played safe and stuck with the tried-and-tested and usually incumbent proprietary route.

RTI will free CIOs from this decision. RTI and virtualisation will give the CIO both. The business can run - concurrently - Windows and Linux operating environments regardless of platform.

As the client is buying a 'service', not just an application, business is likely to be less risk-averse to using Open Source software, as the vendor is providing a business result, not just new applications. In return, boardrooms will be more comfortable with supporting the CIO's decision to go Open Source.

RTI will drive further adoption of BPO Lack of visibility and the fear of 'loss of control' inhibit commercial organisations and government from outsourcing business processes.

RTI will overcome this by monitoring and reacting to organisational requirements, thereby maintaining the highest levels of availability and service-level agreement compliance.

ENDS

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