News Report #2

This week the Lehman Brothers went  bankrupt and Merril Lynch got taken over, giving the information and technology providers a devastating blow.  “Research firm Financial Insights, owned by IDC, said information technology budgets for hardware, software and tech services shrank by 6 percent due to Lehman's collapse and Merrill's sale to Bank of America.”  Cisco systems, IBM, Microsoft, and EMC are all going to lose business.

Technology companies are really hurting from the financial sector meltdown, but there are benefits to be reaped from work on integrating computer systems.  The financial section will continue to spend, not on new equipment but will be investing in new projects to be more efficient and software to improve decision making.  Virtualization software is hot in the market right now.   Virtualization allows a computer to behave like multiple machines helping companies save money and get the most out of the equipment. VMWare Inc and Microsoft are going to benefit from the virtualization software that was built into its new computer software.  "(Wall Street firms) still need to invest in the competitive tools to remain productive," said Sean O'Dowd, a senior analyst at Financial Insights.

Business intelligence, which helps business executives make decisions is a good investment.  Tech companies are really hurting right now.  Analysts are forecasting bad outlooks from tech companies such as Dell and computer products maker Ingram Micro Inc.

The chance  to sell to the top 10 firms in the U.S. security industry has decreased by one third.  News and financial data providers are also going to be impacted negatively.

Wed Sept 17,2008, Wall Street Turmoil ripples throgh tech and data vendors. google news.com