ROI key to IT acquisitions: analysts

Randy Perry, a research vice-president at industry analyst IDC, told

delegates at IBM's Asia Pacific iSeries Strategic Planning Conference that organisations were finding that they had to "do more with less and do more with the same".

"TCO [total cost of ownership] and ROI [return on investment] are important decision factors in the IT acquisition process," Perry said.

He estimated that organisations' demand for storage was increasing about 30 to 40 percent each year.

In a white paper published this month, Perry and co-author Jean Bozman argued that many IT managers are having to do more work with

fewer resources, including both staff and budgets. "As a result, many

organisations are choosing to consolidate their IT environments,

recentralising technology, applications, and processes into a more

streamlined and consistent environment," the authors stated.

Perry was at IBM's conference speaking on an IBM-sponsored IDC report, which looked at the ROI of Windows and Linux server consolidation on its eServer iSeries.

Among the findings he cited was a three-year ROI of just under 214 percent, with a payback period for organisations that had implemented the iSeries servers of about nine months.

Al Zollar, general manager of eServer iSeries at IBM, also used his keynote this morning to talk up e-business on demand.

Zollar said that IBM was investing $US500 million over the next two

years in the iSeries, including go-to-market strategies such as working

with its partners and ISVs.

Zollar believed that standards-based computing, virtualisation and integration were factors important to customers.

Vivienne Fisher travelled to the vendor's Asia Pacific iSeries Strategic Planning Conference as a guest of IBM.