IT would be better off reading 'rapid development' or 'peopleware' then buying Teamstudio [or any other tool] .

Hey Christopher Currie, do you really believe that poor IT choices brought on the recession? Or are you also trying to sell something? ;)

Why did JDJ even link Ian Smith's article? It's such obvious FUD...

Ian Smith, COO of Teamstudio, Inc., "considers profligate IT spending to be one of the fundamental barriers to IT recovery; particularly in the area of software tools." On the contrary, the sales fiqures for IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, or Computer Associates do not support Mr. Smith observations. Maybe all that profligate IT spending is going to Teamstudio. Further more, "the IT sector's recovery has been slowed - in part - by the inefficiency and waste that is a result of solutions that are too complex and do not fit developers' needs." What developers? Those that developed the software?

Since I don't know how to quantify the ROI on a 19" or 21".

What's he trying to sell?

If there's waste in IT -- why are people around here (and other places) working their BUTTS off with NO overtime? Death march projects are the norm, not the rule.

I'm not an expert or anything, but I've been a consultant for the last 7 years in various industries. The waste I've noticed is executives trying to dictate IT planning when they don't understand it. Also, there are so many layers of executives and managers in most projects I've worked on. Maybe this is a waste.

To avoid a recession you have to spend money.
To start a recession you stop spending money.
The 90's saw unprecendented levels of economic
growth because everyone was buying.
When he gets his degree in economics and starts
talking sense I will be interested. In the meantime
he's just another corporate drone trying
to tell you to stop wasting money on others
products and instead waste it on his.

Hard to spend what you don't have, eh? IT budgets are based on employees, contractors, license/maintenance agreements, building space, etc -- and a small portion for actual development of something new. The board of directors of most corporation approve IT's budget. My experience shows people, contractors, offshore devs are the ones that really make a difference in IT spending. If a good group of people can pull together effectively, there's nothing they can't do to solve a business problem, IMHO.

The geeky response by Mr. Stasko is an example of techno-babble and techno-thinking trumpeting common sense that has led to very real profligate IT spendings. You don't need statistics to observe in one's business balance sheet that IT spending has eaten up much of your income with little return. And it doesn't take much head scratching to understand that this is the source of almost all resessions in any business sector. Too many companies made some poor choices of IT investments in the 90's, and that's what got us into the resession. It should not be shocking or unbelievable that if the problem persists, recovery will be slow. This is all supported by the recent article, "IT Services Having Worse Year Than Thought." Visit the link for more info.

I work as a consultant in a sales group for a very large software company and can attest to the fact that many companies are being very cautious in purchasing any software. Every one is looking at ROI, but it is so difficult to measure because you are also at the mercy of the efficiency of the IT department itself, not just the software. In fact some of the most complex software such as ERP systems are the most valuable purchases, particularly if you are buying integrated modules from the same vendor.

This guy is just trying to be a visionary, hopefully he can come up with something original one day.

I agree with the other posters, and I'll go even further to say that LACK of waste in IT spending is slowing the economy.

Ian is saying that waste is affecting the recovery - this would only be true if IT waste has gone UP since the boom days of the .com's. I think if anything it's gone down. So I agree that this is more of an advertising blurb to sell their products.

My going futher means that if IT is wastefull, i.e. purchasing more consulting service, more hardware, and more software than is necessary, this drove the .com boom to a whole new financial level. I'm still wearing wool slacks that were purchased as a result of .com spending inordinate amounts of money to automate processes that could have been done FAR simpler manually, because they thought 'we'll get big and won't have time to do it manually'.

== John ==
== Director of technical Services,
== DAZ Systems, Inc.

Surprising assessment without much merit to it. For the last couple of years corporations are actually enjoying significant lower IT costs, specifically in IT services. If there is any problem then it is probably in execution. If he wants to call this as "waste" then he should call what corporations were doing in late 99 early 00 a total "throw away".

I doubt Mr Smith's qualifications are anything more than that he's COO of an organization that sells a product targeted at enhancing productivity (and thus, presumably, cutting this so-called "waste").

Waste isn't the problem. The problem is too much of a focus on tools and not enough on people. A great team can use an average toolset and produce spectacular results. An average team with the best tools still produces average results.

What makes Mr. Smith qualified to assess the impact of corporate IT waste on the economic recovery? Is he a member of so many Corporate boards that his personal experience represents a statistically large enough sampling to be significant?