Survey: SOA In, Vista Out

Service-oriented architecture is the next big thing for CIOs, Oracles back in favor, and Novell is showing slight gains in Linux. Vista, however, is on the outs, according to a Merrill Lynch survey.

Merrill Lynch, which released the survey May 12, found that 47 percent of the 76 CIOs surveyed in April plan to increase software spending. Thats up from 43 percent from January.

Among the key findings:

• SOA was cited by 87 percent of CIOs as “the next big thing” in enterprise software. However, only 11 percent of CIOs see SOA as a key priority for 2006, whereas 21 percent said they see SOA as a big priority in 2007. CIOs indicated they are most likely to spend their SOA dollars with IBM, Microsoft and Oracle.
• Oracle applications and databases seem to be gaining favor. Among the CIOs surveyed, 38 percent said they plan to buy more Oracle applications, up from 31 percent in January. Only 10 percent said they will pause spending to wait for Oracles Fusion platform in 2008. The wild card with Oracle: 40 percent of CIOs say they may go with SAP. On the database front, 64 percent of CIOs say they expect to spend more on Oracle. The companys enterprise search products, however, need more work, as 83 percent of CIOs said they dont plan to buy them in 2006.
• Among the CIOs surveyed, 58 percent of respondents said they expect to increase Linux use in 2006, with the bulk of the spending going to Red Hat. Novell, however, is gaining some momentum as 18 percent of CIOs said they plan to buy from the vendor, up from 10 percent in January. If Oracle enters the Linux market, 14 percent of CIOs will consider the company as a supplier. In addition, 61 percent of CIOs think Oracle entering the Linux market “would be a good idea.”
• Vista is out of favor. Among CIOs, only 8 percent intend to upgrade in 2007, and 75 percent plan to wait for more clarity from Microsoft before upgrading. Only 56 percent of CIOs with enterprise agreements intend to renew in 2006, down from 60 percent in January.

Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis about productivity and business solutions.