Aussie IT execs laid the blame squarely on the high cost of software and services for the slow pace of improvement in application integration in 2005.
In a survey of 100 CIOs and IT managers from 84 Australian companies by software vendor Intersystems, 67 percent agreed that strategic integration projects have been held back due to excessive software and services costs. The perceived high cost of both software and services are similar at 52 and 48 percent, respectively. The survey also revealed that 67 percent of most recently completed projects delivered the target ROI, up from 54 percent in the previous year.
“We get good value out of software because we do due diligence first, but services tend to be significantly more expensive than we expect,” said Larry Reed, IT manager for the Salvation Army. “Integration of applications is a significant strategic direction that is inhibited by cost.”