Tablets winning CIO hearts and minds

BT Engage IT tech index suggests CIOs increasingly seeing tablets as good for their business

Research from BT Engage IT has shone a light on just how rapidly tablets are rising up the CIO agenda.

Tablet shipments grew by 77 per cent in Q2 to 25 million, according to market watcher ABI Research, with 2012 shipments set to surpass the 100 million barrier.

Against this backdrop, 11 per cent of CIOs quizzed in the VAR's latest IT Technology index selected the touchy-feely form factor as the technology that has had the biggest positive impact on their business.

This compares with just three per cent when the last survey was conducted in November.

Virtualisation still topped the index, which questioned 100 CIOs at UK enterprises with more than 1,000 employees. Forty-two per cent selected it as the technology that has had the biggest positive impact on their business, compared with 39 per cent in November.

Cloud-based storage remained in silver-medal position, although its share of the spoils dropped from 21 to 14 per cent. Mobile was unchanged in third place on 13 per cent, followed by new operating systems at 10 per cent. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) made its debut in the Technology Index, with a two per cent share.

BT Engage IT chief executive Rich Lowe said: "The latest Technology Index results reflect exactly what we are seeing with our customers – businesses are starting to see the real benefits of devices such as tablets, but these cannot just be standalone projects.

"In order to derive real benefits, the latest technologies need to be part of a well-formulated strategy, which delivers the underlying infrastructure, as well as the front-end devices."

Lowe added: "As CIOs' biggest challenge is now delivering the same level of service with less, it is interesting that IaaS has made an appearance in our Index for the first time. It is only a small percentage this time, but we believe that this is the way the market will start to move."