The results of a survey of about 450 technology professionals released Wednesday found that of 26 technology categories, data storage was the only technology for which spending would increase this year.
The survey, of 300 professionals from the U.S. and 151 from the U.K. was performed by Millward Brown Research International and Lightspeed Research. The U.K. respondents had a more pessimistic view on future economic conditions compared to the U.S.; 50 per cent of U.K. IT workers think there will be fewer jobs available in IT in the next 6 months, compared with 28 per cent of US counterparts.
Out of 70 per cent of the companies that indicated they have reacted with some changes to the current economic climate, 60 per cent said they had cut their operating expenditures, almost 50 per cent were on a hiring freeze, and 40 per cent laid off people.
When it came to IT spending, overall budgeting on data storage technology was expected to increase by a marginal amount (.05 per cent), but it was still in stark contrast to other hardware categories, which showed spending declines of between two per cent and three per cent.
Sixty-five per cent of the respondents said they expect a change in technology spending over the next year. On average, IT budgets were expected to shrink by 4.1 per cent.
Spending on desktops, notebooks, servers, and hand-held devices was expected to drop by 3.2 per cent, 2.8 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively. Spending on printers, displays, and other peripherals was expected to drop by 2.8 per cent, 2.5 per cent, and 3.2 per cent respectively.
Software spending was expected to drop anywhere from .05 per cent to 1.7 per cent this year depending on the underlying hardware technology, with OS spending down 1.3 per cent.
Networking and telecommunications equipment spending was also expected to be off this coming year. Spending on LANs, WANs, Internet/Intranet/Extranet and telecom equipment spending were expected to be down 1.5 per cent, 1.2 per cent, .6 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively.
