Credit Crunch Content Management - Predictions for 2009
Everywhere you look you read about the economy being in the worst shape in a very long time. Lee Thompson, Technology Chief of E*Trade, speaking recently to Business Week summed it up – “In times of recession, as companies need to find a way to do more with less, figure out the value gained out of every penny they spend and make alternatives to reduce costs.”
“Do more with less”, “do what you have to you” and “value for money”
will be the mantras for enterprise software in 2009.
As it is Christmas I’d like to use “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens to structure my predictions for 2009. This ghost story of Christmas has:
- The Ghost of Christmas Past – Past enterprise software decisions
- The Ghost of Christmas Present – Current projects
- The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – Choices for 2009
The Ghost of Christmas Past
The “Ghost of Christmas Past”, leads Scrooge on a journey to some of his past Christmases, where events shaped his life and character. Many past decisions on enterprise software will shape your current budget and expenses for 2009.
1. The Death of Zombie Maintenance Renewal
The zombie process is famous among software engineers and many maintenance renewals seem to operate in a similar way. However, the recent headline grabbing price rises of Oracle and SAP will make companies think twice about renewals. The truth is soup has power. With - Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Oracle – MISO, in reality it is difficult to migrate from these vendors and their stacks. However, in the case on content management new websites can be built on new web content management systems and new projects can start on new collaboration and document management tools with minimal switching costs.
Prediction for 2009: Companies will, more than ever, rigorously review existing renewals (that are typically based on a percentage of very high license cost) and choose alternative, much lower cost modern software. Companies will focus, in the first phase, on projects that are new or those that will replace existing legacy systems that are costing too much to support. Everywhere you look, Open source and Saas are acknowledged as ways to dramatically reduce cost and will be a primary cost saving focus for 2009.
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