'Business as usual', say US tech firms

An informal poll of US IT personnel has revealed that 75 per cent of respondents had no plans to put IT projects on hold following the recent terrorist attacks.

Some 14 per cent said that they have not decided what to do, while 11 per cent said they would probably postpone some IT projects, according to 700-plus responses to a question on US publication Computerworld's website.

Some major users said their plans have not changed at all. Delta Air Lines told Computerworld that it is not cutting its IT and ecommerce initiatives, and Raytheon & Staples issued a similar statement.

Boeing said its IT plans are still being assessed. Spokesman Jim Prouix said: "The industry we largely support is still very much in flux, and it is hard to make a decision about IT until what's going on with the airlines sorts itself out."

Computerworld also reported that Howard Rubin, an analyst at Meta Group. said that IT budgets would be likely to follow the overall direction of the economy. "History shows that one of the first places companies are going to make cuts is in IT because it's counted as a cost," he said.

Rubin added that he expects long-term payback projects, such as customer relationship management and ecommerce systems, to be affected the most if IT budgets do get pared back.