Software spending on rebound IDC claims

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are more concerned with quality of service and security than cutting costs, latest figures reveal

A cut above: cost cutting has slipped down the corporate agenda, IDC claims

Reducing costs in IT has slipped down to third place on the agenda of European CIOs, research from IDC has revealed.

The research – which questioned 733 IT decision makers across Europe - revealed that both improving IT service levels and quality, and enhancing IT security were ahead of reducing costs. IDC claimed the results show that European CIOs are shifting from ‘survival mode’ to a more forward-looking and proactive stance.

Although IDC admitted the research shows there are clear signs of market recovery, the analyst still maintained that the recovery will be gradual and drawn out. Heading the list of recovery areas was security software, with infrastructure software showing the brightest growth prospects in Europe this year.

Other high performing sectors included storage, server virtualisation, database, and system management software.

Demand from larger enteprises is also returning, IDC claimed. Firms with more than 2,500 employees have moved from poor growth in the 2009 survey, to being on a par with mid-market organisations. However, enterprises with less than 500 employees showed ‘relatively little’ improvement in spending growth.

Conversely some of the countries and industries most affected by the economic crisis are showing the strongest signs of recovery, IDC claimed. Manufacturing and financial services showed ‘significant improvements’ in spending growth from 2009 to 2010, with enterprise application spending in France and Italy ‘improving significantly’ in 2010.

But best performing growth categories (in terms of spend) in the 2009 survey – such as the Nordics and public sector – were less impressive, with limited improvement or even declines in spending growth for 2010, claimed IDC.