Gartner Says Worldwide IT Spending to Grow 5.3 Percent in 2010
Worldwide IT spending is forecast to reach $3.4 trillion in 2010, a 5.3 percent increase from IT spending of $3.2 trillion in 2009, according to Gartner, Inc. The IT industry will continue to show steady growth with IT spending in 2011 projected to surpass $3.5 trillion, a 4.2 percent increase from 2010.

Worldwide computing hardware spending is forecast to reach $353 billion in 2010, a 5.7 percent increase from 2009. Robust consumer spending on mobile PCs will drive hardware spending in 2010. Enterprise hardware spending will grow again in 2010, but it will remain below its 2008 level through 2014. Spending on storage will enjoy the fastest growth in terms of enterprise spending as the volume of enterprise data that needs to be stored continues to increase. Near-term spending on servers will be concentrated on lower-end servers; longer-term, server spending will be curtailed by virtualization, consolidation and, potentially, cloud computing.

Worldwide software spending is expected to total $232 billion in 2010, a 5.1 percent increase from last year. Gartner analysts said the impact of the recession on the software industry was tempered and not as dramatic as other IT markets. In 2010, the majority of enterprise software markets will see positive growth.

The infrastructure market, which includes all the software to build, run and manage an enterprise, is the largest segment in terms of revenue and the fastest-growing through the 2014. The hottest software segments through 2014 include virtualization, security, data integration/data quality and business intelligence. The applications market, which includes personal productivity and packaged enterprise applications, has some of the fastest-growth segments. Web conferencing, team collaboration and enterprise content management are forecast to have double-digit compound annual growth rates (CAGR), in the face of growing competition surrounding social networking and content.

The worldwide IT services industry is forecast to have spending reach $821 billion in 2010, up 5.7 percent from 2009. The industry experienced some growth in reported outsourcing revenue at the close of 2009, an encouraging sign for service providers, which Gartner analysts believe will spread to consulting and system integration in 2010.

Worldwide telecom spending is on pace to total close to $2 trillion in 2010, a 5.1 percent increase from 2009. Between 2010 and 2014, the mobile device share of the telecom market is expected to increase from 11 percent to 14 percent, while the service share drops from 80 percent to 77 percent and the infrastructure share remains stable at 9 percent of the total market.

Worldwide enterprise network services spending is forecast to grow 2 percent in revenue in 2010, but Gartner analysts said this masks ongoing declines in Europe and many other mature markets as well as an essentially flat North American market.

More...

IDC Outlines Ten Software Licensing Policies Every Software Vendor Should Consider
Software vendors have historically negotiated custom exceptions to software licensing terms and conditions to accommodate customer needs and demands. However, the proliferation of customer use cases that challenge existing licensing practices, such as virtualization, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing, suggests that the time has come for software vendors to move toward a more uniform licensing structure that can be applied across customer segments and even across products. To accommodate such a move, International Data Corporation (IDC) has identified ten software licensing policies that address the scenarios most commonly handled via custom agreements.

The benefits of having clear policies in place where custom licensing arrangements have been the norm include: shorter, more efficient sales cycles; less time spent inventing new terms; reduced contract administration and cost; reduced opportunity for error; and the ability to create a strategy for addressing important issues that impact the way software is licensed that works for the vendor from a profitability perspective while addressing the needs of the customer.

The ten "must-have" policies that every vendor should consider to address the most pressing and prevalent customer needs are:

1. Subscription: Almost every software vendor does some subscription pricing, a large portion of which is custom. Although creating a subscription pricing policy will not be easy, it is possible and, increasingly, a competitive necessity.

2. Virtualized Environments: A very large number of software vendors have made no changes to their licensing policy in light of virtualization. Vendors need a strategy, and ideally a policy, to address the proliferation of virtual machines in the customer environment.

3. Service Provider Licensing Agreement: As more and more customers turn to SaaS firms or other service providers for their business application needs, software vendors need to develop or refine their licensing policies to address the provision of their software by service providers.

4. Disaster Recovery Rights: A range of disaster recovery policy options are needed to address everything from customers running software for mission-critical tasks to customers that need a cold (ie, not running) backup for unexpected situations.

5. Buying Programs: Buying programs should be designed to help simplify the software purchase process for customers by including consistent messaging and discounting, a common membership available through any channel, and detailed volume license certificates.

6. OEM Programs: Many vendors have built strong businesses around selling components to other vendors, and this portion of the total software industry continues to post strong growth rates. As pricing and payment strategies start to change, vendors would do well to develop guidelines for measuring success, roles and responsibilities, and operating principles.

7. Pay-per-Use Licensing: Pay-per-use (PPM) licensing software pricing provides customers with an annuity license model where cost is based on metered use of a software resource. Before a vendor can offer the granularity of PPU packaging and pricing, it must first develop a metric for per-use measurement that closely aligns with how and why customers use the software.

8. Global Licensing Policy: Software vendors maintain a delicate balance between offering a competitive price at the outset and meeting discount expectations, which can be very steep in certain cultures. Periodic review of list and net prices by a central body, combined with a review of exchange rates and local prices, are crucial to maintaining price stability and consistency.

9. IP Indemnification: Past IDC research has shown that while many vendors consider indemnification a basic customer obligation, it isn't always clearly stated. Proper indemnification can help a client limit or eliminate litigation concerns while still allowing the customer to embrace a broad range of software.

10. Licensing Communications: The industry is moving toward more transparency in licensing and pricing. As licensing has become a competitive differentiator, licensing communications has become an important tool for vendors to help customers understand policy and the rationale behind it, as well as to challenge competitors to match customer-friendly policies.

More....

2010 Service and Leadership Trends in Customer SupportSupportIndustry.com recently conducted a new survey designed to capture Service and Leadership Trends in Customer Support. Sponsored by Citrix Online, the survey assesses the state of customer service issues in the customer support industry: How our customers and agents are doing, how we are managing people and measuring performance, how effective our training and coaching is, and how we are using technology to get closer to customers. It is meant to be a snapshot of what we in the support industry fundamentally do and how well we do it.

Key findings of the survey include:

Support really does make people happier. Support transactions have a measurable impact on customer frustration levels – close to 85% are frustrated before the transaction, but more than 60% are not frustrated at all afterwards. Likewise, over a third of support operations deliver customer satisfaction levels in excess of 90%, while fewer than 15% deliver less than 80%.

Training helps, but only the right kind. Training has a measurable impact on customer satisfaction levels, but only when (a) you train both supervisors and frontline staff and (b) your training approach includes accurate call simulations and measurable performance objectives. There is also a correlation between the amount of training you do and how satisfied your customers are.

Agents do well -- with the right tools. Over 80% of respondents rate their agents as being confident, and the vast majority report good relationships between agents and their managers. The biggest challenges remain access to problem-solving technology, as well as communications and people issues on both the internal and external side.

Performance evaluation is an art and a science. Metrics, customer feedback, and the old standby of what the boss thinks all remain a big part of how agents are evaluated. Session monitoring, surveys, and coaching are less frequently used, showing a trend toward less labor-intensive approaches for performance evaluation.

Remote support is here to stay. The era of blindly troubleshooting customer issues over the telephone has gone the way of the 8-track tape. An overwhelming majority of respondents now use remote support tools, in operations of all sizes, particularly for remote access to customer systems. Other features such as file transfer and remote diagnostics are popular as well, while sites using these tools for live collaboration and escalation remain in the minority.

To get the full results of the survey, click here.

Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People
by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

'clever people'. But the truth is, clever people are as fiercely independent as they are clever - they don't want to be led. So how do you corral these players in your organization and inspire them to achieve their highest potential? In "Clever", Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones offer potent insights drawn from their extensive research. Leading clever people can be enormously challenging, yet doing so effectively is the key to your organization's sustained success. Lively and engaging, this book provides the ideas, practices, and examples you need to create an environment where your most brilliant people can flourish.

Click here for more information on this book.