It is extremely unlikely we will see any IT companies following the example of financial services firms and carmakers in begging for state handouts. But it is nonetheless encouraging that Gordon Brown seems to be aware of the role technology can and must play in rescuing the economy.

The prime minister has taken to talking in depression-era terms as he continues his bid to save the world – ­ oops – ­ the banking industry.

Brown has on more than one occasion over the past month drawn parallels between last century’s investment in roads and railways and a 21st century priority for building digital infrastructure. His latest proposals highlight high-speed broadband networks and promoting jobs in technology industries.

This is all good to hear – ­ but forgive us a little cynicism while we wait for the proof. Only last year, the government as good as ruled out any state funding for next-generation broadband – ­ although there are rumours that technology minister Stephen Carter’s forthcoming Digital Britain review will look to find ways to better support private sector investment.

And just how many times have we been through government-backed initiatives to persuade young people to opt for a career in IT, with precious little success?

As Computing has pointed out repeatedly over the past year, history proves that companies which invest in IT are best positioned to survive a downturn. In what many predict will be the worst economic crisis for a generation, the same is surely true of countries.

Having the political will to promote our digital economy is undoubtedly a good thing, but we need fresh ideas and real momentum to make it happen.

So thanks, Gordon, for putting IT at the heart of your plans. Now let’s see some tangible actions to back up the politics.

We had hoped to resist the temptation to use the line: “This is not an IT strategy, this is an M&S IT strategy” when discussing Marks & Spencer’s IT transformation programme, but the opportunity was too good to turn down.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of valuable lessons that can be learned from M &S IT director Darrell Stein’s plan that can help other IT leaders drizzle some super-soft burnt sugar icing delicately over their whole fruit technology cake.

OK, we promise to stop now.

M&S has been going through a business turnaround for some time as it rides the rollercoaster of consumer tastes and high street decline. Much of what the retailer has been through will be similar to the challenges facing many recession-hit organisations in the coming months.

Stein’s “spend and save” plan is a great example of the importance of balancing the books when it comes to IT budgeting.

Experts such as Gartner and other analysts have extolled the virtues of redirecting cost cuts into IT innovation, but the reality has often proved harder to achieve.

At M&S, however, the firm is two years into a major IT change programme, yet at the same time operational IT costs have been reduced by 13.5 per cent in the last financial year and incremental IT spend cut by 60 per cent, with the overall cost of technology remaining flat.

Every IT leader needs to be looking for opportunities to remove unnecessary expenditure to free up funds for the sort of innovations that will be needed to remain competitive and come strongly out of the downturn.

Be honest ­- be brutal if you have to -­ but most managers know where there is slack in their operation that can be removed. Remember that one per cent cut from 10 areas is just as valuable ­ and sometimes more palatable ­ than 10 per cent taken from one project.

Computing has featured in recent months many of the technologies and techniques that can help to get through the credit crunch ­ virtualisation, outsourcing, a focus on customer-facing systems such as e-commerce, among others ­ these are all fruitful areas to investigate, and all used at M&S too.

With the economic crisis showing no signs of ending soon, the only certainty in the next 12 months will be uncertainty.

Clearly, financial services firms will be hardest hit, but the knock-on effects will be widespread.

However, past experience suggests that innovative users of IT will be best positioned to emerge the strongest from troubled times.

The constraints within which IT leaders will have to operate will test many. Capital expenditure will be tightly controlled, and considering that most major hardware purchases ­ and often large software licence deals too ­ are financed through leasing, with the cost of debt so high the options will be limited.

For small or medium-sized businesses, there will inevitably be a lot of interest in software-as-a-service, hosting, cloud computing and other online pay-as-you-go offerings that minimise or even avoid an up-front payment.

For bigger businesses, the spectre of outsourcing will loom large. There aren’t many major firms that have not outsourced at least some aspect of their IT operations already, and the potential for budget cuts and the conversion of direct costs to operational expenses gives a financial imperative that may be hard to argue against.

But there are plenty of technology options too. There is no silver bullet, no next big thing that IT leaders can turn to. But there are still plenty of current big things that offer significant potential savings ­ virtualisation, voice over IP and mobile working, to name but three of many.

Whatever route you prefer to choose, there is one action that all IT leaders need to take.

In previous downturns, there was much talk of bridging the IT-business divide to survive unscathed. Yet here we are again, and still the gap often seems as wide as ever.

There will rarely be a better opportunity for IT to work with its business counterparts to plot a route through all the current uncertainty. Let’s not waste this chance to cross that divide and close it once and for all.

Watching the government grappling with the concept of social media is the online equivalent of dads dancing at a wedding reception: an embarrassment to all. And Whitehall mandarins do not even have the excuse of alcohol consumption.

That is not to decry the efforts of those such as MP Tom Watson, who is championing a Web 2.0 agenda. Nor is it to dismiss the government’s aim, which is to engage with the significant proportion of the UK who feel disenfranchised by the political system.

But current efforts look doomed to fail.

In future, the way citizens interact with the state will change and the internet will be an integral part of that. So it is absolutely right that government starts planning for those changes.

But the root of the problem is this: bureaucracies, particularly this government, have an uncontainable desire to centralise control. This is the antithesis of the social media movement, which engages people through empowering them to make their own decisions.

The success of Facebook, Bebo, MySpace - or Netmums and NHS Choices - has been predicated on building active communities around shared interests. This should be fertile ground for public services.

But social networking lets users decide how they wish to use the platforms. If they want to know the hottest widget, their peers advise them.

Similarly, if a parent wants to find a decent school in their neighbourhood, the state can provide guidance on facilities and even transport links. That could be extremely valuable. Allowing others to add their views would increase the value, but would bureaucrats allow it?

For an administration that has made a specialism out of funnelling money to consultants, it beggars belief that there is a shortage of advice. But therein lies a dilemma ­- if the government genuinely wants to engage with citizens, it is not consultants that can tell them how to do it, but the people themselves.

The chances of that happening are more remote than UK fathers suddenly discovering they really do know how to “bust a few moves”.

It is good to see so many vested interests discussing the prospects for next-generation broadband in the UK.

The announcement of Ofcom’s latest consultation is an important milestone, and will, hopefully, allow all parties involved to debate the way forward without much of the finger pointing and acrimony that characterised the early days of broadband Britain back in 2001-02.

But given the wider economic crisis, there has to be a question mark over the plans to put the UK at the forefront of high-speed communications.

With estimates of a capital cost of up to £28bn to roll out a UK-wide infrastructure supporting bandwidth up to 100Mbit/s, the likelihood of massive private sector investment is small, certainly in the short term.

With the cost of credit so high as the banking system struggles for liquidity, the payback period for such a major initiative starts to become prohibitive. And there is little chance of government funding to make it happen.

As the Broadband Stakeholder Group points out, this presents an opportunity for smaller-scale initiatives for local fibre networks, a model pursued with some success on the continent.

But even then, with venture capital markets turning away from early-stage technology startups, it’s not a great time for any IT entrepreneur looking for cash.

This is just another example of how the clogged financial arteries will have a knock-on affect in the technology world. It’s already apparent that major IT vendors are starting to talk about optimising IT and making the most of your estate, rather than trying to push costly new products.

It’s too early to say whether or not the attempts to bail out Wall Street will be enough to minimise the knock-on effects. And when we see Microsoft planning the biggest share buyback in history to boost its stock price, it’s clear that even the most successful players are bracing themselves for a difficult period.

There has rarely been a time when smart ideas and cost-effective innovations will be more important to the prospects for the IT sector and for broadband Britain.

By this time next week you will almost certainly be fed up of hearing that Bill Gates is leaving Microsoft.

But you will forgive us, we hope, for marking his leaving in this column ­ – after all, Computing has written more words than most about the world’s biggest software company since it was formed.

Clearly Gates’s departure to focus on his charitable foundation and his new description as the world’s greatest philanthropist is a significant milestone.

When he shuts his office door for the last time, the man who has arguably done more than any other person to help create the technology revolution will be a technologist no more.

So goodbye Bill, and thanks for all the bugs.

History will undoubtedly be kinder to the Microsoft founder than his critics have been, and regardless of what anyone may think of the company’s dominance, his contribution has been without parallel.

The real issue for IT managers, though, is not Gates’ past, but Microsoft’s future.

Nothing will change when the great man walks away from the day job in Redmond.

The empire he built will not come crashing down overnight. The research labs will not be short of new ideas. But there are more question marks over the direction of the company than ever before.

Most experts see a steady decline in the importance of Windows as we know it ­ – an increasingly bloated operating system that drives ever-more energy-hungry computers. At some point there will have to be a fundamental rethink of its role.

MS Office, the great cash cow, similarly faces emerging competition from free rivals that may one day threaten its dominance of the desktop.

And Microsoft’s abortive attempt to buy Yahoo shows the company has still to determine its future shape as the world moves increasingly to the internet.

Nobody’s IT strategy will change because Bill Gates is no longer at Microsoft.

But future IT strategies are likely to take a very different approach to its products.

The rise of consumer technology and its impact on business has become a growing theme for IT managers.

The increasingly tech-savvy population has different expectations of the way it relates to companies and government, as employees, customers and citizens.

This represents a historic turnaround.

In the past, new technologies have confounded consumers, and adoption of the latest innovations has slowed or sometimes died as potential users retreat from perceived complexity or just simple techno-fear.

But now, consumer demand is starting to push ahead of the ability of the IT community to deliver the technology people want.

Smartcards are such an obvious way to improve the passenger experience on public transport. London’s Oyster card has already shown how it can make travel cheaper and more convenient, and offer the potential for new services, such as the combined travel and payment card launched by Barclaycard last year.

But for once, an important technology is being rolled out before the companies that support it are ready.

The first national smartcard-based transport scheme, to allow senior citizens free bus travel anywhere in the country, will be unable to exploit its advanced features because hardly any bus operators support it.

Is this a sign of things to come? As we all turn to new technology in our everyday lives ­ for communication, entertainment, education and more ­ the national appetite for IT seems only to be expanding. Through products such as mobile phones, iPods and Nintendo’s Wii, technology has become a fashion item for all ages.

This presents huge challenges ­ and opportunities ­ for everyone working in IT.

Imagine if user resistance to new projects turned into an enthusiastic demand for more. How soon before companies will steal a march on their rivals by beating them to the use of a new technology to create greater customer loyalty and profit?

 IT managers in every organisation need to respond to the changing reality of a consumer-led technology revolution.

In some ways, it comes as little surprise that better use of technology by business could add a massive £35bn to the UK economy.

The sector itself already contributes £66.5bn, or 6.4 per cent of GDP, every year. It is second only to financial services, that much-vaunted ­ – though suddenly vulnerable ­ – success story. And IT is growing ­ – by 125 per cent between 1992 and 2004, compared with 90 per cent for all other sectors.

But it’s not just the money. The technology industry employs one million people directly ­ – that is a job for one in every 20 of the UK workforce ­ – and supports three million overall.

And as businesses make more and better use of technology, so the supply side continues to expand.

UK IT’s voracious appetite will require another 140,000 staff, per year for the next five years; a testament to the still-untapped appetite for technology. But there is also a cause for concern.

The technology education structures in the UK have improved in the past decade, with a greater emphasis on the business skills that go with all high-level positions.

And schemes such as that at British Airways, which focuses on drawing people across from other disciplines, have a lot of scope.

But the skills shortages that have been a staple of Computing editorials for at least the past decade show little sign of abating.

And with low-level jobs increasingly sent offshore, the major question about how graduates progress from university to the high-level jobs that do still exist remains unanswered.

The Technology Pioneers report published at Davos last week is inspiring, not least against the background of plummeting stock markets, predictions of imminent recession and slowing investment in next-generation technology innovation (Investment in media technology sector slumps).

It is more important than ever that business makes the best use of all possible potential. But, as is the common refrain in discussions of major IT programmes, the technology can do nothing on its own.

The IT sector is the second most productive in the entire UK economy, worth a massive £66.5bn last year.

And its contribution of 6.4 per cent of GDP is less than a single per cent behind the financial services industry, that much-vaunted success of all economic successes.

As such, the efforts of UKTI ­ the government’s trade and investment arm ­ to develop an effective
marketing strategy for our technology firms’ expansion into foreign markets and for inward investment
into the UK sector are to be supported and applauded.

The only slight reservation of otherwise unqualified approval is that the Treasury appears to be humming
a different tune altogether. And humming it rather louder.

Sir Digby Jones, former head of the Confederation of British Industry and now minister for trade and investment, is right when he says that the IT sector is an unsung hero of innovation and success.

And he is right that we should be proud, brave and optimistic in our continued pursuit of a world-leading commercial position.

In addition, he is right that any strategy to promote the UK IT sector has to focus as much on small businesses as on their larger counterparts, because so much of the industry is composed of niche firms and innovative startups.

But that is where things come unstuck.

UKTI can promote away until it is blue in the face. But if the chancellor’s proposal to remove taper relief on capital gains tax goes ahead, small businesses will be the worst hit and innovators will be encouraged to take their ideas abroad.

Sir Digby said he has put his position on the issue (unspecified) to Alistair Darling and we must wait for the official statement to the Commons, due before Christmas.

We must all hope that good sense prevails, or UKTI’s prescient, constructive and intelligent strategy could be suffocated at birth.