ITWeb took a few industry specialists by the elbow and posed the question of what they thought to be the single most important IT event or development in 1999. This is what they had to say.
The majority of chief executives of JSE-listed companies believe that communication technology and IT will change the way businesses are managed, according to a survey conducted by Dom P'erignon.
According to a survey conducted by NOP International, Visa is the preferred payment card brand in the world. 55% of consumers in 49 countries reported that they preferred Visa, while 23% preferred MasterCard and 18% American Express.
New research findings reveal that the well-documented communication gap between IT executives and their non-IT colleagues may now be a thing of the past. The research, commissioned by Uskotec and conducted independently by BMI-TechKnowledge, compares the attitudes and perceptions of 57 senior IT executives from SA`s Top 200 organisations with those of non-IT managers.
A survey undertaken by UK`s Trend Consulting Company and distributed in SA by AST Enterprise Systems Management (ESM), a division of the AST Group, focuses on European attitudes to the financial impact of downtime. Martyn Healy, MD of AST ESM says the report "should be a warning to the South African marketplace".
The average SA company is spending more on IT, has more users on its networks, has e-mail as its number one data application and Internet telephony is a misnomer. These findings emerged from the third annual Global Communications Survey, published by an IT trade publication and sponsored by British Telecommunications.
SA Online has launched its third SA Internet User Survey. Conducted by The House of Synergy, SA Online says the survey is the most comprehensive of its kind in the local market.
Some 83% of network managers who responded to SNS Consultants` worldwide Network Rage Survey reported abusive and often violent behaviour by users as a result of computer problems. According to the survey, acts of violence resulted in dozens of shattered monitors, smashed keyboards, kicked-in hard drives and flying computer mice, indicating that network rage is a growing phenomenon.
Budgetary restraints are seriously limiting the network manager`s ability to purchase more bandwidth. This is the finding of the first capacity planning survey undertaken by SNS Consultants. Conducted in conjunction with US vendor, Concord Communications, the survey highlighted the issues that impact network managers. The survey polled some 400 network professionals who are responsible for the day-to-day operations of multiple sites across a network.
The gap between top and bottom earners in the local IT industry is huge, with some IT professionals earning as much as R900 000 or as little as R24 000 a year, according to the findings of ITWeb's IT salary survey. The average annual package is over R150 000, but non-monetary issues, such as challenge and job atmosphere, make a major difference to overall job satisfaction.
An annual worldwide survey of information systems executives commissioned by EMC reveals that the growing adoption of Windows NT is fuelling the need for consolidated data repositories for previously distributed information.
The Standard Microsystems Corporation (SMC) has leapt into the coveted top spot in the network hardware category of the VARBusiness Magazines` Annual Report Card survey.