IT in 2010 - The Right Solution At The Right Time

One of Deloitte's 2010 Technology predictions (www.deloitte.com/ie/tmtpredictions) is that Moore's Law is alive and well but in a different form that heretofore. In this era of mobile and handheld devices the predictions argue that rather than the focus being on faster chips it will instead be on chips that are 'good enough' for the job at hand in terms of processing power but which are cheaper and require less power.

This prediction struck a chord with me in terms of some of my recent client experiences and the pressing need to make IT cheaper and more efficient. As a general rule the IT industry (and their business customers) have often defaulted to 'gold plated' technology solutions, be it in the form of big CRM systems, high availability, disaster recovery or a myriad of other areas. In far too few cases have these decisions being challenged. Ask yourself did you really need that tier one CRM solution?, did that service really need a hot standby DR capability? why does that application need 99.9999 availability? Often, an honest assessment of the business needs and the risks can lead to a much cheaper and sometimes more effective solution that is good enough for what the business needs. This is not to say that we shouldn't design and deploy solutions that consider future business needs and which are flexible, but rather that we should deploy the right solution at the right time.

In 2010 lets try to focus on doing just that with renewed vigour.