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[Peaches]

Corporate IT done 'lite': open source, Web 2.0 gain appeal as budgets shrink

CIOs are turning to cheap, lightweight tools to get the job done fast.
Computerworld - San Antonio-based CPS Energy, the largest municipality-owned gas and electric company in the country, needed to get a better grip on its budget and its budgeting process. Since CPS Energy was an enterprise SAP user, more SAP AG software was the obvious and lowest-risk way for CIO Christopher Barron to go.

Instead, he opted for software from a far lesser-known vendor at a far lower price -- about four times less.

Similarly, CIO Jamie Kutzer had considered buying "a big-name intranet package" from a top-tier software vendor as the tool to drive online collaboration across Allied Building Products Corp.'s 200 branches.

"But it was just too costly, too big -- and frankly, I don't know if we were ready for the big leap," Kutzer says. "So we're using smaller, lighter and cheaper technologies from companies that I had never heard of but that my Web services team knew about. They provide a much, much lower cost of entry."

As the ongoing recession continues to choke IT capital spending, buying integrated software from big-name vendors is on the way out -- fast. What's in is "IT lite," which includes Web 2.0 technologies and services that are cheaper and easier to implement, mix and match. It also includes software from no-name, up-and-coming vendors; open-source tools and applications; and an ever-widening variety of tools for mapping, chat and more that are available for free on the Internet.

details at computerworld - http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=339599