So what can I say will happen the first half of 2009

1.  We have to understand what happened in 2008 (still happenning). LOOK HERE.

2.  Look at the forecasts for 2009. LOOK HERE.

3. Understand what is happennning in the paradigm change at the end of this  business cycles. LOOK HERE.

4. Most CIOs will do the following in order to cut costs:

a. Consolidation/virtualization of servers, storage and desktops.

b. Vendor management and renegotiations for software maintenance contracts (have "grown"completly out of control in the last 4 years.

c. Change and renegotiate contracts with "temps" suppliers. CIOs want to differentiate temps in 3 different types of contracts: (1) what is called salary "laundering": this is when the vendor only serves as a channel for paying salary for employees that the CIO needs but cannot hire. We expect a growth here in 1H09 (2) Long term temps: we expect the market to shrink, although we will see only 10% of individuals leaving; compared to 30% in 2007/8. But here it will be a market share war between the vendors. Many small vendors will fold in the next couple of months. (3) Project-based temps: projects that are inprogress will continue some of them at a lower "speed" which means less hours bought. We will see MANY small firms going under.

d. Remaking of the data center: today's data centers use air conditioning inneficently. We will see many projects that try to fix this and other inneficient use of electricity. During this project we will also see DRP/BCP projects.

e. Markets that will be active:

1. Defence

2. Government

3. Public Utilities

4. Finance (REGULATION)

5. CIOs will also do projects to HELP THE BUSINESS make money:

a. Business Inteligence and balance scorecard projects (also data mining)

b. More projects that will manage relations with clients

c. Defining better Business Processes (defining the new paradigm shift for after the recession)

d. Change the OLD CORE BUSINESS applications

VENDORS will have to rethink their strategies