Businesses must innovate IT

12:45 6th November 2008

Businesses must focus on IT innovation or hibernate to survive the economic downturn, according to a technology research firm.

Gartner Research has claimed that organisations which fail to radically change their technology systems risk wasting their IT budgets on incremental modernisation for little gain.

In addition, the analyst firm also suggested that companies could hibernate their IT systems by keeping them running for the minimum cost, while saving for later innovation.

Alistair Newton, Gartner analyst, said: "Far from being fast followers, companies in between the two options will be ditherers or laggards who waste their IT budget … which will have little or no consequence for their business."

Gartner currently has over 4,000 associates, including 1,200 research analysts, in 75 countries worldwide.

Last month, Gartner predicted that spending on Enterprise 2.0 messaging and collaboration technologies is set to fall, amid increasing competition and a weak economy.