For many years our customers have been telling us that by using Zerowait for service and support of their NetApp equipment they can get a better Return on Investment (ROI) than they can get from the equipment OEM. And now it looks like a Goldman Sachs survey confirms the issue.
“ROI is the name of the game. CIOs have emphasized to us that they are buying on a need vs. want basis, are often downsizing deals to fit with current budget constraints, and are searching for solutions with a high and fast ROI,” the survey authors wrote.
The spending survey indicated CIOs see the “greatest potential for cost reduction in IT in the area of networking equipment.” A full 47% of the respondents said the most likely area where spending would be slowed would be on purchases of personal computer systems, servers and storage.
Spending cuts won’t be limited to equipment: 42% of the CIOs indicated that “they are reluctant to spend money on third-party professional services.” This is in keeping with the decline in interest for discretionary IT projects and could indicate more of a reliance on in-house IT employees.
The survey goes on to imply that the future of cloud computing is ‘Cloudy’
Cloud computing may get buzz, but it won’t get spend
The CIOs indicated that server virtualization and server consolidation are their No. 1 and No. 2 priorities. Following these two are cost-cutting, application integration, and data center consolidation. At the bottom of the list of IT priorities are grid computing, open-source software, content management and cloud computing (called on-demand/utility computing in the survey) — less than 2% of the respondents said cloud computing was a priority.
Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT Inc., said that such hot-button technologies as cloud computing deployments may slow down. “The message here is CIOs are looking primarily to tested, well-understood technologies that can result in savings or increased business efficiencies whose support can be argued from a financial point of view,” he said.
One reason for the low priorities of grid computing, open-source software and cloud computing may be that CIOs and business executives don’t understand their value. “They require a technical understanding to get to their importance. I don’t think C-level executives and managers have that understanding,” King said.
When budgets get tight it makes sense to reevaluate where your company can cut costs without cutting quality. Zerowait provides an affordable alternative to companies that are ‘locked in’ to NetApp’s storage solutions but need a reliable vendor to provide support. High Availability service and support does not have to break your storage budget.
