"Goldman Sachs this week released its first
information-technology spending report, based on a recent poll of
100 executives from Fortune 1000 companies that, in part, asked
about highest and lowest spending priorities. Broadly speaking, the
results were unsurprising: Corporate tech budgets aren't expected
to increase in 2002; big technology companies such as Dell
Computer, IBM, EMC and Microsoft are gaining market share;
corporate clients are cutting back on less urgent areas and
focusing money on more immediate needs.
The curious part came in the details. "Areas like supply-chain
management software and Linux servers rank near the bottom of
spending priorities," wrote Goldman Sachs analysts Rick Sherlund
and Laura Conigliaro. The results brought "some surprises from our
IT managers, with Linux...virtually not registering on our
survey."
Respondents to the Goldman survey indicated that mainframes,
Linux servers and supply-chain management ranked as the three
lowest spending priorities, in that order. Conversely, the top
items in order of importance were Windows 2000 or XP Professional
desktop operating systems, security software and Unix servers."
