CIO Magazine Tech Poll Reveals Topline Revenue Growth Is the Top Business Priority

FRAMINGHAM, MA--(Marketwire - Feb 21, 2012) - IDG's CIO, the executive-level IT media brand providing insight into business technology leadership, reveals the CIO Magazine Tech Poll results for January 2012. The poll findings demonstrate that IT budgets are remaining strong as well as provides insight into how respondents are investing their budgets in specific technology categories and organizational objectives.

Responses from more than 300 top IT executives show that investments creating topline revenue growth is their top priority (43%), followed by improving business process (20%), enabling business innovation and expansion (19%), lowering business operation costs (13%) and lowering IT operations costs (3%).

IT budgets remain strong for 2012, with a majority (84%, up from 81% in 2011) reporting their IT budget will increase or remain the same over the next 12 months. Overall, organizations are reporting a 4% increase in IT spending for 2012.

"The smart use of technology is always a key component in driving innovation and creating a competitive edge," said Maryfran Johnson, editor in chief, CIO magazine and events. "We see IT value proving itself across the board in many organizations, both in steady or growing IT budgets as well as in more customer-facing applications that lead to growth."

Sever virtualization is the top technology in production, with approximately three-quarters (72%) of participants implementing a server virtualization project. Server virtualization projects have grown significantly year over year (56% in 2011 and 42% in 2010). Additionally, IT leaders are actively researching the next phase in IT projects and initiatives, including public cloud computing services (40%), BI & analytics (34%), mobile applications (33%) and private cloud computing services (32%). Mobile apps (27%) is the top technology being piloted and desktops/laptops (53%) and smartphones (53%) are the top the technologies being upgraded.

Over the next twelve months investments will increase for many technologies. Mobile apps (57%), BI & analytics (53%) and tablet upgrades (53%) are the technologies that the majority of respondents are increasing investments for in the coming year. Ironically upgrading desktops/laptops, which is currently high in production, and tops the list for upgrades, has the largest budget decrease (17%).

"Mobile and the consumerization of IT are very visible and time sensitive issues for IT leaders, which is reflected in the fact that more than half of the respondents are in the process of upgrading their organization's smartphones," said Adam Dennison, vice president and publisher, CIO. "These new technologies allow businesses to move faster and enable innovation and growth. IT decision-makers, thought leaders and solution providers will gather March 4-6, 2012 in San Francisco at IDG Enterprise's Consumerization of IT in the Enterprise Conference & Expo (CITE) to discuss how mobile and consumerization can move organizations to the next level."

To review the full results contact Adam Dennison, vice president and publisher, CIO at adennison@cio.com.

About CIO Magazine Tech Poll
The CIO Magazine Tech Poll is conducted twice a year, among heads of IT, to gauge which technology areas are the focus of IT in the coming year and to measure the direction of spending within those areas. The current CIO Magazine Tech Poll was conducted between January 3, 2012 and January 22, 2012 through the CIO LinkedIn Forum, CIO newsletters and email to CIO customers. Results are based on 333 respondents who indicated they are the top IT executive at their organization or business unit. The margin of error on a sample size of 333 is +/- 5.4%.

Trending data references a similar CIO magazine survey conducted in January 2011 among 305 IT leaders and January 2010 among 213 IT leaders.

About CIO
CIO produces award-winning content and community resources for information technology executives and leaders thriving and prospering in this fast-paced era of business, as well as creates opportunities for information technology and consumer marketers to reach them. The CIO portfolio includes CIO.com, CIO magazine (launched in 1987), CIO Executive Programs and the CIO Executive Council. CIO properties provide business technology leaders with analysis and insight on information technology trends and a keen understanding of IT's role in achieving business goals. The U.S. edition of the magazine and website are recipients of more than 200 awards to date, including the American Society of Business Publication Editor's Top B-to-B Magazine since 2000 and Website of the Year in 2010 and two Grand Neals from the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards. CIO websites and printed publications appear in more than 25 countries, including Australia, Canada, Finland, India and Sweden. CIO Executive Programs -- a series of face-to-face conferences including the CIO 100 Awards & Symposium™ -- provide educational and networking opportunities for pre-qualified corporate and government leaders. The CIO Executive Council is a professional organization of CIOs created to serve as an unbiased and trusted peer advisory group. CIO is published by IDG Enterprise, a subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading media, events, and research company. Company information is available at www.idgenterprise.com.