The credit crunch, a global economic downturn, and widespread market turmoil made a sombre backdrop for IT market prognostications in late-2008. Forecasters reduced earlier 2009 global IT spending projections from a healthy 5.5-7% growth to half that level. Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) face unprecedented change and customers that are more demanding. IT solutions remain largest business productivity improvement enablers. This paper discusses top priorities for enterprise Chief Information Officers (CIOs) through 2009, in these tougher times.

Read on for a discussion of server and storage infrastructure, application integration demand growth, service-oriented architecture, and enterprise application portfolios.