But on other IT initiatives, Young said, the university plans to proceed cautiously and watch what other schools do to see "what saves money and what doesn't."
Blair Mandryk, global IT manager at Haworth, an office furniture maker, had been looking to cut his technology costs long before the recent economic events began unfolding. For instance, his staff previously reduced 450 physical servers down to 100 boxes through the use of VMware Inc.'s virtualization software.
But nowadays, Mandryk said, IT managers also have to find ways to expand services to end users without necessarily being able to increase their tech budgets. "The business is still expecting IT to deliver, so without having the money to do it, you have to find creative ways," he said.
Mandryk predicted that SaaS "is going to be a huge trend," partly as a result of the economic downturn. A year ago, he wouldn't have considered SaaS technologies himself. Six months ago, "probably yes," he said -- and now, "absolutely."
Use What You Have
Since many companies are likely to put off IT upgrades until the economy improves, another strategy for coping with the downturn is to get the most out of what you already own.
Chris Mincay, an IT procurement manager at a grocery chain that he asked not be identified, said he's looking at ways to make better use of the applications that he himself relies on as part of his job. "Sometimes applications are so sophisticated that you only use a certain percentage of [their capabilities]," he said.
Scotty Bryan, CIO of the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority, is trying to trim IT costs wherever he can -- a process that began earlier this year when credit tightening put a big crimp in the student loan business.
According to Bryan, the authority's IT department has been managing disks better to increase the available storage capacity, getting rid of software modules that aren't being used and shifting users to electronic documents to cut down on paper consumption. Job vacancies in IT aren't being filled, and purchases are being reviewed much more closely than before, he said.
At the Service Employees International Union, CIO Charles Everett said he expects to be asked to help find ways to cut overall operating costs. SaaS is an option, he said, although he isn't sure it would cost less in the long term compared with continuing to run software in-house.