Energy crisis is not all bad

The energy crisis will have a negative impact on the IT industry, but there could be some positive spin-offs.

This is according to a number of IT gurus that will participate in ITWeb's IT Confidence 2008 conference, in Midrand, in March.

David Ives, head of development and platform, Microsoft SA, suggests that instead of focusing on the negative impact and implications of the energy crisis, the industry should rather look at what IT and those in IT can do to help. "There is much that could be implemented through IT that would indeed have a significant impact on how we manage and drive effectiveness in energy utilisation," he says.

John Jenkins, executive for outsourcing at Business Connexion, states that the concept of environmental awareness, particularly green IT, has been getting significant attention worldwide, and the energy crisis could give green IT a major new impetus in SA.

His concern is that over the past 12 to 18 months, most large companies have been through a major technology and platform refresh. This, he says, means there is a lot of new capital deployed in the field that can't just be written off in order to refresh again with more power- and environmentally-friendly equipment.

Simon Carpenter, head of strategy at SAP, says: "Elsewhere the world is already embracing green IT, but in SA it's going to be very hard to fulfil that agenda when every company has a generator belching diesel fumes into the atmosphere." He predicts IT budgets will suffer as companies direct spending towards items such as generators.

Sandy Pullinger, nFold MD, agrees that IT budgets have already been cut back to cater for spending on alternative power sources. She also points out while rural communities have been suffering from power shortages for a long time, the recent dramatic shortages experienced in towns and cities have cost the economy.

Mike Brierley, CEO of MTN Networks, believes Eskom will start to get the power shortages under control and better managed, and that consumers will reduce their usage, resulting in a reduction in the number of blackouts.

Simon Tomlinson, Faritec CEO, agrees: "I believe the government will implement a plan to solve the problem over the next three years." His concern is that despite this, the power crisis has created a negative international perception of the country and that we will feel the backlash in terms of reduced investment and opportunity.

Ken Jarvis, MD of Jika Africa, says the much bigger problem is the plummeting confidence in the country and the resultant increased brain drain. "This will have a much bigger impact on the IT industry than the actual lack of power. We already lack the depth in the skills base to deliver IT solutions for the country; imagine if we lost another 30% to 40% of this skills base."

Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, believes there will be a positive spin-off, as the industry will be better prepared for disaster management. This has always been a neglected strategy, but will now mature in SA as it has in other developed markets, he notes.

Conference chairman and director of Merchantec Financial Services Brian Rainier says that judging by recent hardware suppliers' results, notebook stockists are already smiling.

ITWeb's IT Confidence 2008 conference will provide business and IT decision-makers with a day of presentations and panel discussions covering trends, ideas and developments in the IT industry for 2008, based on market opportunities and challenges seen during 2007.

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