Laptops, PDAs and Windows upgrades to dominate IT plans

Mobile computing and Windows XP upgrades will dominate IT spend over the next two years despite strategies being undermined by business leaders and a lack of investment.

Those are the findings of the National Computing Centre's (NCC) 'IT Strategy Survey 2003' which is based on responses from 428 organisations in various sectors with a total of 20,000 IT staff serving between 20 and 60,000 end-users.

Although there is evidence companies have postponed planned upgrades from Windows 98 and Windows NT, IT executives are forecasting a rapid upgrade to Windows XP on the desktop over the next two years.

This will in turn drive a seven per cent growth in desktop systems because 55 per cent of current desktop systems will need to be upgraded or replaced to run XP.

Mobile working is also becoming a major issue for IT departments with the deployment of portable computers predicted to grow by 43 per cent to 2005. Two-thirds indicate they will incorporate PDAs into their IT strategy over the next two years.

Linux is gaining an increasing foothold in both the desktop and server environment, with a third of users planning on using Linux servers for the first time or expanding their current commitment to Linux.

Open source software, meanwhile, will remain in the realm of the health, education and government sectors. More than half of respondents said they have never considered open source and of those who have 40 per cent have rejected it, with migration and support costs being the major issues.

Spending cutbacks and the continuing fragile state of the economy are still having an impact on IT directors' ability to implement IT strategies.

More than 85 per cent of respondents said short-term planning and lack of understanding of IT issues by the business side of the organisation is a serious concern.

The IT director of a multinational manufacturing company said in the report: "IT has to support operational decisions, and as these are usually short-term in nature, it distracts and detracts from the ability to long-term plan IT."

The financial services sector, however, was the most satisfied with the way the business and IT functions worked together while government was the least satisfied.

Michael Gough, CEO of NCC, said in the report: "It is very disappointing to note that business leaders are underplaying the significance of IT in effecting business change. In today's economic climate organisations need to be agile and to differentiate themselves. Effective and imaginative use of technology can reduce costs and create competitive advantage."