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Utility Computing: Have You Got Religion?: Page 2 of 8

Our industry, like most, evolves, and with good reason: You, the architects and ultimate buyers of information technology, won't let things move at a breakneck pace. It's far too risky. With the possible exception of the dot-com revolution--an experience we'd rather not repeat--IT decision-makers have dictated that real, meaningful, business-affecting change happens over the span of a decade, more or less. First, there was the PC revolution, from the mid-'80s to the mid-'90s; then the networking revolution of the early '90s; then the client-server revolution of the last 10 years; and most recently the Internet revolution. All were important turning points for IT, but each took the better part of a decade to move from first implementations to widespread business reliance.

It was this evolution of information technologies that led to the dawn of utility computing. Until three years ago, the executive suite's conviction that IT spending was critical to business success led to a sometimes reckless disregard for actual cost--so much so that IT still accounts for more than half of the typical corporate capital budget, not to mention a sizable human-resource cost.

In the last three years, a languishing economy and flat revenue growth have made management downright zealous about scrutinizing expenses. And when a big cheese has asked, "How much bang did I get for my IT bucks?" the answers have been less than satisfying.

Part of that dissatisfaction is simply a matter of nomenclature; IT managers still talk about uptime, transactions per second and initiatives taken on. The executive response has been: "Just tell me how I saved money or gained new business by doing all this IT stuff." Pity the poor CIO with no hard numbers to offer.

The watchword is: "Prove your value and lower your costs." Corporate profitability depends on it. In fact, our poll found that a whopping 57 percent of senior managers say that IT costs too much. Some 35 percent added that IT is too slow to respond to business needs, and 31 percent said IT doesn't measure its performance with usable business metrics. Remember that we polled IT decision-makers, not senior business-line executives--it's a fair bet that a survey of non-IT types would show even higher dissatisfaction.