“Come gather ’round people, wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown. And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin’ then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone. For the times they are a-changin’.” – Bob Dylan

The Global Recession

Re-ces-sion \ri-se-sh?n\ “a period of reduced economic activity”1

Recession: it’s an ugly word, but unfortunately a fact of life—especially these days. The current economic crisis not only affects individuals and businesses in North America, but those around the globe as well.

Nearly every day during the last six months when I’ve opened up the newspaper, there’s been some story about a company that has laid off its employees. The sad truth is that many of these layoffs are targeted toward individuals who have been working for the same company for many years and now are finding themselves looking for work in a job market for which they may not possess the skills required.

So what are these individuals and businesses doing to weather the storm? Well, I guess you could say it depends on the individual and what business he or she is in. Some industries have been harder hit than others (e.g., construction and manufacturing), but one thing is certain—the recession’s effect is being felt by everyone everywhere.

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With little doubt that the US economy is in or near recession, the big question now is whether we’re heading into a global credit freeze and financial meltdown. If the worst happens, all bets are off—we’ll be pretty much in uncharted territory. But if we do manage to escape with nothing more severe than a typical recession, what approach should you take towards IT spending? Read the rest of this entry »

Making the blog rounds today: points about enterprise software purchasing in response to poor economic conditions. I’m thinking about the relationship to free and open source (FOSS) enterprise systems as well as the pricing and priorities companies are facing in terms of their means for purchasing and implementing things like ERP systems.

Curt Monash’s NetworkWorld.com article predicted a rocky September for IT vendors. He didn’t pursue a level of granularity that distinguished types of enterprise software but if you look at some of the recent news from both proprietary and open source vendors you get the impression that organizations buying these systems are acting as Monash suggests.

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Things continue to be busy for both Microsoft and HP as they try and make headway in the ever-competitive IT industry.?
Not abandoning it’s pursuit of the lucrative online advertising market, Microsoft has made a deal with HP to make Internet Explorer the default browser on HP PCs. Read the rest of this entry »