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IT professionals put the value of business efficiency over cost reductions, but in this economy they are still struggling with tight budgets. Microsoft recently commissioned Harris Interactive to survey more than 1,200 IT pros worldwide to find their perspective on driving innovation and IT spending priorities.
A greater number of participants value business efficiency over reducing IT costs as the top IT priority, but only 22% said giving the business a competitive edge is their top IT priority.
Over half of respondents report that budget cuts are the biggest barrier to innovation
Approximately 38% of IT pros said they would use an extra hour in the day to make systems work together more efficiently.
Just over 30% said they would use a magic hour to improve collaboration between IT and the business.
Participants cited security as the number one challenge in managing infrastructure.
More than half of participants said that both advancing overall business goals and increasing end-user productivity are a part of IT security.
The top IT security priority cited was the protection of customer and company data, which 73 percent noted as a top concern in the next one to three years.
Nearly 85% of IT managers consider green factors when making data center choices, but environmental factors only factor into final decisions for about 44% of those interviewed.
On average, respondents reported using 63% of their budgets to keep the lights on and 37% for innovation.
IT Management 
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