Recession, IT, PR, Corey's New Gig

Recent good news from IBM, Sun's acquisition of MySQL and Oracle's acquisition of BEA culminated a tumultuous week on Wall Street.

IBM's stellar quarterly results showed that IT spending continues to see robust demand -- outside of the U.S., with Europe and Asia growing double digits. As companies restructure to weather global financial turmoil, especially in the U.S., IT companies will need to focus their communications activities as partners in business value creation. As capex tightens, the limited dollars available for IT infrastructure will flow to technology firms that can demonstrate the ability to help companies squeeze out greater value from their IT investment.

As you look at technologies that are attracting investment, it's clear to see investors are following the money -- technologies that enterprises invest in, those that are mission-critical, must-have systems and IT companies with reputations for delivering the highest business benefit. For now, those technologies include virtualization, data storage, data integration, data analytics, software-as-a-service, SOA and content management/archiving. There are probably others I'm omitting, but this is a list of the biggies.

Meanwhile, Sun buys MySQL for $1B, a company that did $50M in revenue according to a CNET article in April 2007. Larry Ellison finally bagged BEA (middleware, SOA, integration). And of course Microsoft's news of buying Fast Search & Transfer. Continue to look for more consolidation and big companies making investments and acquisitions in must-have, mission-critical technologies.

Public relations clearly plays a key role in all the issues above. From my perspective, it's about creating contagious relationships where customers derive such value that they willingly evangelize on behalf of the company, automatically and authentically engaging peers and demonstrating the tangible benefits through their direct experience. Clearly that's easier said than done, but in difficult economic times customer experience and desire to support their IT partner becomes most critical.

Finally, I'm happy to announce that I have joined Avanade, a IT consultancy formed by Microsoft and Accenture. I start Jan. 28 at Director, Global Communications & Strategy. This is a great role with a great, fast-growing and dynamic company. I intend to continue to blog on technology trends, although I anticipate perhaps less frequently ... at least initially.