links for 2008-10-23

Economic struggle isn't new to the IT industry, but some working in a high-tech profession view the current financial circumstances as an opportunity, while others wonder how much they can really stretch a dollar.

Despite this perfect storm it’s hard to generalize the enterprise technology economy. Simply put, it’s not all gloom and doom. And technology executives seem calm–in IT there’s no panic. But there is a general feeling that the tech sector and all the executives in the ecosystem have been here before and will manage through a downturn again...Gartner’s worse case is that technology budgets will fall 2.5 percent in 2009, but that isn’t so bad. Both Forrester Research and Citigroup

...I ask John to walk us through troubled economic times he’s been through in the past...After discussing that topic for the bulk of the episode, John gives us his take on the Novell plans to acquire Managed Objects and I reprise my analysis of as well. We also talk about the virtualization numbers out on Microsoft’s market share in that space, and John tells us about the uptick in PowerShell he’s seen, at least in one study...

The announcement of the definitive agreement for Novell to purchase Managed Objects has been on the street for almost a week now. I’ve held back partly because of a pressing work engagement, but also to try and really think about this some on my own. I’ll admit I do not know much about Novell, its recent acquisitions, vision or strategy. What crosses my mind about Novell is their legacy and recent entrance into the world of open source Linux with SUSE and virtualization with ZENworks stuff.