David Pearson

Corporate IT spending will slow to between 4 percent and 6 percent growth this year, compared with 7 percent to 9 percent in recent years, according to 75 senior IT executives and CIOs polled by financial firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Co. Also, 75 percent of the respondents, most of whom represent Fortune 500 companies, said they have not modified their budgets because of economic conditions or market turmoil.

The overall performance of the IS function in delivering quality and value-added resources in a timely and cost-efficient manner has been abysmal. So says Greg Hackett, president of The Hackett Group, a benchmarking and management consulting firm in Hudson, Ohio. Hackett

Many's the CIO who has endured the complaints of a CEO claiming that IT executives either don't understand broad business issues or aren't team players. Recently IT executives fired back by way of a small but loud written survey conducted by New York City-based IT recruiter John J. Davis and Associates Inc.

What would you be doing right now if you weren't an IT executive? Chances are your answer...