TECH THAT MADE IT
Sometimes the InformationWeek 500 data quantifies a trend that people have seen. It's no surprise server virtualization has become mainstream. But it's stunning to see the jump in just the last year: 77% of InformationWeek 500 companies have deployed server virtualization widely, up from just 46% a year ago. Virtualization's often a key tool for data center consolidation, and 50% of top 100 companies consolidated data centers this year, compared with 28% of the remaining 400 companies.

WAN optimization/application acceleration also shot up: 50% of InformationWeek 500 companies have deployed it widely, compared with 30% a year ago. And the pipeline's still full: 31% have it in limited deployment, even more than the 22% a year ago.

The third obvious trend is wireless e-mail. It's now widely deployed at 81% of InformationWeek 500 companies, up from 56% a year ago. A lot of those connections must be via Wi-Fi-equipped laptops, though, since only 55% of companies have smartphones widely deployed. (That's another that sounds high against our definition of half of employees. There's no denying smartphones' wide use, but half of the employees? Maybe at law firms.)

There's a fourth technology that, while not the smash hit of these other three, reached an overdue milestone moment this year. More than half of InformationWeek 500 companies (54%) have deployed encrypted customer records widely, a mark that holds equally true for the top 100 companies and the next 400. Another 29% overall have a limited deployment. It's come through companies like Raytheon, which recently took stock of all its applications that hold customer data and encrypted almost one-third of them. (The others it retired or removed the data from. More on this in "20 Great Ideas To Steal," p. 86.) Given the tendency for laptops to get lost, and for crooks to try to steal customer data, this is momentum that should continue.

Two technologies, RFID and grid computing, don't slot well into either of the two categories described here--they're neither on the cusp of a big year yet nor have they broken through to wide adoption. Put them in the "perpetual tire kicking" category, as technologies that many of us have thought for years would break through but haven't. For grid computing, 42% of InformationWeek 500 companies have it in limited deployment in their IT departments, just 16% in wide deployment. That's up only a hair from last year. RFID is similar: Only 14% of companies have deployed it widely, up from 12% last year, while 46% have a limited deployment, up from 40%.

NO ONE WAY TO WIN

More than anything, the data points to how companies take many paths to business technology innovation. Asked to pick the three ways they'll innovate with technology this year, only one of the 11 choices drew more than half of respondents--and that one, "make business processes more efficient," got only 51%. "Lower costs" and "introduce IT-led products/services" each drew 39%. Low on the list were "create a new business model/revenue stream" (12%) and "move to eco-friendly IT" (6%).

The average IT spending among the 500 companies is 2.8% of revenue--a full percentage point less than in 2001, but about the same as last year. Sixty-two percent of companies expect IT spending to increase over last year, 18% expect it to be flat, and 20% expect a cut. However, that split varies greatly by industry: Half of automotive companies expect an IT budget cut, while just 3% in health care do. IT spending in banking, despite being a sector hard hit in the economic slowdown, almost exactly mirrors the overall average, with 63% expecting an increase.

What does it all add up to? That there's still no easy formula for business technology greatness.

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Selection Of The InformationWeek 500