Aussie companies defy financial crisis and spend on IT

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 23 April 2009 10:52

Business IT - Technology

IT spending is falling dramatically around the world but in Australia many companies are defying the global trend and continuing to spend their hard earned cash on investment in IT infrastructure.

As part of a global survey of IT decision makers in February and March this year, Gartner surveyed 102 Australian companies and, despite the recessionary times, a mere 26 percent said IT projects had been cancelled, with the majority expecting their IT hardware investments to stay the same in the current financial year compared to the 2008 fiscal period.

Speaking in advance of Gartner’s infrastructure operations and data centre summit in Sydney in May, Gartner managing vice president Matthew Boon, says that despite the global recession, IT spending in infrastructure and operations projects is expected to remain strong amongst Australian companies throughout 2009.
 
Boon said that although IT spending in general is expected to fall globally, most Australian companies believe projects addressing operational efficiency in IT infrastructure and the data centre, including virtualisation and green IT projects, remain a priority.

According to Boon, the majority of Australian respondents to the survey expected their organisation's IT hardware investments, including client computing, printing devices, storage and servers, to stay the same in the fiscal year 2009 compared to 2008.

On investment in virtualisation technology, 50 percent of those Australian companies surveyed said they anticipated an increase in spending from 2008 to 2009, with another 41 percent anticipating it will remain the same.

Considering the tough financial environment, only nine percent of respondents anticipated a year on year decrease in virtualisation technology investments in 2009, and, similarly 51 percent expected green IT investments to remain the same, and another 38 percent expecting increased investment in this area during 2009.
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