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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Venkie who wrote (36470)	4/30/2001 10:19:33 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

“Pure Economics” Prompts Stepped-Up IT Spending at GE Forbes Magazine, April 30, 2001 The slowing economy won’t stop General Electric from accelerating its investment in information technology, according to an article in Forbes Magazine. GE, which is the number-five company on the Fortune 500, plans to spend $3 billion in 2001 on information technology, including further investments in EMC information storage, according to Forbes. “Two years ago we would never be doing this,” said Gary Reiner, GE's chief information officer. “We would have been cutting IT just like everybody else. Tech was the first thing we'd cut. But things have changed here.” While other companies are tightening their belts, GE said it plans to forge ahead with an Internet build-out and the digitization of virtually every segment of the company - a strategy that will yield real and intangible gains, according to Reiner. Along with the online sales of goods and services, GE will launch iCenter, a site expected to generate $70 million this year by selling information. Achieving that goal will require spending $15 million on new hardware, including EMC information storage systems to handle the new sea of digital data. In addition, GE will spend $35 million on engineers to crank out code and install links for iCenter. “We'll spend the money over 18 months - and recoup it in a year," said Joseph Hogan, one of iCenter’s coordinators. “That's why GE is investing in times like this. My goodness, it’s pure economics.”