IT assets have little cash value. Their value comes from the tools they bring to the business, not the figure on a balance sheet.

Businesses that dominate the global economy have no idea what the financial value of their IT assets is

Are surely?

Businesses that dominate the global economy have no idea what the financial value of their IT assets are.

To quote from the linked Micro Focus doc:

"56% think the real financial value of their organisation's core software assets are either totally ignored or poorly evaluated compared with other assets such as brands, property and intellectual property".

So, to be clear, this survey is not about adding up the total amounts that have been paid to purchase hardware and software, but the (largely intangible) value that the organisation places on its software - whether internally developed or 'off the shelf'. The findings are of concern because, in the absence of such a valuation, it is impossible to conduct a meaningful risk management strategy or to develop a sensible security policy.

I wonder how many know the 'value' of their IT staff!

Presumably the BOFH knows the exact value of their IT assets... and the % of the value which is in his basement!

...these are the same managers and executives who force I.T. depts to purchase operating systems from certain monopolies. Even though their senior techs are telling them that it's not appropriate or adequate for the task at hand. Then they wonder why their IT budgets get out of hand. It's true then, most of these idiots really did get promoted far beyond their competence.

Company that sells widgets discovers a "problem", which they can just happen to fix if you pay them lots of money. The only thing missing from their survey/press release is a price list and the phone number for their sales department. This is a very tired marketing ploy and I'm surprised the Advertising Standards Authority doesn't have some code of practice to suggest that these surveys include who pays for them and what point they were trying to make by commissioning them.

Presumably they must work otherwise there wouldn't be so many (I'm sure the research depts of certain anti virus companies spend more time on coming up with them than researching viruses), but how many people actually take any notice of them?

...what the financial value of their IT assets is.

"of their IT assets" is a phrase modifying "value," and does not affect the verb, so it can be dropped without changing the correct verb form:

...what the value is.

"value" is singular.

In our next lesson, we will discover why all grammar corrections on Usene^H^H^H^H^Hthe Internet aren't worth the bytes used to store them.

"what the financial value of their IT assets is"

The entire sentence from which this clause is extracted is itself very clumsily phrased (what else to expect from ueber-geeks?), but the verb is right. Peeling away the various qualifiers we are left with "value is"; both subject and verb in the singular. An alternative is to put both in the plural "what the values of their IT assets are," the choice depending on subtle questions of emphasis. As it stands, the emphasis is on the value (singular) of the totality of the IT assets, not the values of the individual IT assets. One can engage in further nitpicking about businsses being plural but value being singular; whichever is chosen, the verb still has to agree with its subject, value or values.

Since I'm on a roll here throwing rocks at El Reg's writer, let me add:

As for the sentence as a whole...

"Businesses that dominate the global economy have no idea what the financial value of their IT assets is."

would better be phrased "Businesses dominating the global economy have no idea of the financial value of their IT assets."

But even that can be shortened by replacing "have no idea of" with "do not know". Also, the word "financial" is of dubious merit: what other kind of value does a business concern itself with? Certainly not moral, ethical, or esthetic.

Thus: "Businesses dominating the global economy do not know the value of their IT assets." This rewrite is shorter, more simply structured, and makes its point more straightforwardly than the original phrasing, all of which are virtues in non-literary writing.

I believe the phrase:

"Businesses that dominate the global economy have no idea what the financial value of their IT assets is"

is correct because you are tlaking about the (singular) value not the (multiple) assets them selves.

I failed GCSE english, so don't quote me. ;)

Personally, I think it is a stupid question - and, yes they do exist...

Value vs Cost, is another matter.

IT is everywhere and cannot be avoid - from you mobile/Blackberry to your Customer Database and mainframe.

They are tools that enable business.

They enable the business to communicate (email etc).

They enable the business to create reports/presentations/documentation (Office apps)

They enable the business to organise and understand their customer data (DB, CRM etc).

They enable the business to manage procurement (SAP etc)

They enable the business manage their employees (PeopleSoft etc)

...

So, how much business can a modern company perform without their various IT assets and what is that worth to them? - Now that is a better question...

Since when has "value" been plural?

100 desktop PC's @ £500 when new - two years ago.

Net worth now (after depreciation etc) . . . . probably a lot less than 100 quid each!

Now let’s remove all of them from use for about 48 hours . . . .

NOW tell me how much they are worth!!!

>100 desktop PC's @ £500 when new - two years ago.

>Net worth now (after depreciation etc) . . . . probably a lot less than 100 quid each!

>Now let’s remove all of them from use for about 48 hours . . . .

>NOW tell me how much they are worth!!!

Absolutely, unswervingly correct. Since a sizable company with a few hundred staff, and which does $500million in business per year would only spend, maybe, $5million per year on on its IT infrastructure, it's hardly worth tracking, isn't it?

New equipment purchases...

Cost of decommissioning of equipment that's reached end-of-lease...

Internal relocations...

Cabling, patching...

Hotswap stockpiles...

Rackspace rental at offsite data centre...

...all *peanuts*. Spend more on coffee for the staff kitchenettes, you would...