The proposal also called for reducing the budget for military hardware deemed useless in countering security threats related to terrorism and cyberattacks more than two decades after the end of the cold war.
In addition, with limited dollars available for all military procurement -- the Pentagon's budget for military hardware is $60 billion -- contractors fear that dollars spent on missile defense could come at the expense of other programs with more immediate payoffs.
Having shorn so much off the budget for military hardware, the government is relying heavily on "soft power" to maintain the long-standing claim that Britain "punches above its weight" in the global arena.
"Through 2010, server virtualization will have the single largest impact on budget for IT hardware and support," the report notes.
And $2,000 budgeted for yearly hardware upgrades has simply been scratched off the list.(In a bit of poetic justice, this correspondent was awake at 3 am this Sunday to fix a few errors after a lightning strike at one of his VPS host's data centres took out mains and battery backups, and led to damage to hard drives on which his jarred brains operated.
The post-implementation annual budget was approximately $40,000 for hardware and software vendors and a substantially increased usage of a local computer support vendor.
If you prefer a DIY approach for these projects, remember to budget for trips to the hardware store to buy paintbrushes, a lawn mower or other tools".
While ZTE has flirted with premium and sometimes bizarre devices, in the smartphone world, the company is primarily known for its budget hardware.
Additional costs for hardware also contributed to the budget overrun, the board said.
The obvious answer to this problem would be buying more hardware, but getting additional budget for these pricey items is not always practical.
