September 02, 2020

Building a viable IT budget for 2021 in a time of uncertainty: Seven critical steps

In 2021, IT budget spends will be diversified over a broader range of categories (digitalization, mobile computing, employee training, for example) than in 2020, when IT budgets were heavily invested in security and cloud services. Security and cloud services will still lead investment categories, but organizations have reached an inflection point and feel they have attained many of their initial goals in these areas. End users will continue to be engaged in technology decision making. However, there are indications that more organizations want to fully understand just how much they spend on IT across the company. From a budgetary standpoint, this has sparked a movement to consolidate more of the IT spend (and assets) under a single umbrella, with IT in charge. Also in 2021, CFOs and other technology budget decision-makers will expect more input from successful trials and proofs of concept before they agree to fund new technology. This is in response to the mixed performance of ROI formulas, and also to cost overruns, which have routinely occurred with cloud services. That's not all. Below are seven additional budget forecasts that IT budget planners should take into account before building a 2021 IT budget.

Improvements in native code interop in .NET 5.0

With .NET 5 scheduled to be released later this year, we thought it would be a good time to discuss some of the interop updates that went into the release and point out some items we are considering for the future. As we start thinking about what comes next, we are looking for developers and consumers of any interop solutions to discuss their experiences. We are looking for feedback about interop scenarios in general – not just those related to .NET. If you have worked in the interop space, we’d love to hear from you on our GitHub issue. Some items mentioned in this post are Windows-specific (COM and WinRT). In those cases, ‘the runtime’ refers only to CoreCLR. ... C# function pointers will be coming to C# 9.0, enabling the declaration of function pointers to both managed and unmanaged functions. The runtime had some work to support and complement the interop-related parts of the feature. ... C# function pointers provide a performant way to call native functions from C#. It makes sense for the runtime to provide a symmetrical solution for calling managed functions from native code. UnmanagedCallersOnlyAttribute indicates that a function will be called only from native code, allowing the runtime to reduce the cost of calling the managed function.

Ducati Motors to leverage IT transformation from Aruba and Lenovo

“Using the latest and most advanced technologies is part of Ducati’s DNA,” said Konstantin Kostenarov, chief technology officer at Ducati. “Relying on the best technologies made available through our partners has significantly contributed to the overall improvement of processes, while at the same time increasing the value of the results achieved. “The choices made two years ago and the projects that have been carried out since then have allowed us to tackle the various complexities of this sport in the most effective way possible.” Giorgio Girelli, general manager of Aruba Enterprise, commented: “Among the technologies that have emerged as a result of Covid-19, the cloud is undoubtedly one that has proven its worth and made it possible to better face crisis situations. “An internal commissioned survey reveals that 59% of those who were able to use cloud solutions during emergency situations considered its use to be fundamental to their operations. “The sharing and combination of the latest technologies between the three companies involved has given life to a very innovative project focused on one goal: obtaining maximum performance.”

Leveraging AI to Deliver a Personalized Experience in the New Normal

It is key to understand how different subscribers perceive different experiences while gaming, attending a smart venue or traveling virtually. Each of these experiences will vary for different individuals: e.g. a man in his 30s who works from home versus a teenager who moves around the city. These experiences need to be predicted across various touch points, such as OTT game apps or smart venues, the network, call center, retail, and billing. It is also crucial to proactively identify anomalies and factors contributing to a negative experience or positive experience in order to act fast to resolve issues before they impact gaming customers, or to target the right customers at the optimal time for an add-on purchase in a smart venue. The application of AI and ML brings intelligent insights that are more precise than those produced by existing processes and systems, and enables the CSP to predict changes or anomalies in their customers’ experiences. AI and ML enable the possibility to look at each subscriber based on their individual profile, including demographics, device used or mobility to predict the experience more accurately, and taking into account the individual sensitivities, biases and expectations. The insights software learns with changing dynamics either at the CSPs network, customer segment or market and adapts predictions accordingly.

To build responsibly, tech needs to do more than just hire chief ethics officers

Just like the early days of digital, ethics can seem complex and remote. Remember thinking, “The internet will never be big enough to disrupt my industry? It can be tempting to assume you need a Ph.D. to debate complex topics like algorithmic bias or exclusion, especially as many of those chief ethics officers have those deep credentials and expertise. Even though tech fancies itself as an industry that welcomes new types of talent and thinking, credentialism is more part of the industry culture than we think – or admit. (If you’re questioning that, just think about how popular it is to put ex-employers in your Twitter biography.) Unless you work on ethics full time or you’re a product VP, it’s easy to feel that you have no say or no role in your company’s commitment to social responsibility, especially if you’re underrepresented at your company or speaking up puts you at risk. Ethical leaders play a powerful central role in coordinating, setting standards and creating incentives, but they wouldn’t want to be the only ones to own this work, either. Responsibility’s a muscle we build and practice. Doing the right thing isn’t a one-off action, but a commitment to values that inform day-to-day behaviors and decisions. So we need to create structures that ensure company values are embedded in roles across the board.

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