Recession? What recession? The number of delegates at IBM’s Information on Demand conference in Las Vegas in October 2009 was actually up on the year before. But maybe it’s just that the global giant has an attractive message for CIOs and financial managers looking to save money or grow revenue.

The message is that it’s possible to unlock real value in the petabytes of often disorganised information swilling around in their companies – and that getting a hold on that value brings with it competitive advantage.