A new report from analyst house Gartner suggests that worldwide software budgets will increase in 2010, despite many enterprises reducing their total IT budgets in 2009. Organisations will increase their software budgets by an average of 1.53 per cent in 2010, the survey claimed.
The survey was conducted during April and May this year and quizzed around 1,000 IT professionals from around the world about their expectations of IT budgets during 2010.
One quarter (25%) of the EMEA companies questioned indicated that they expected to see their IT budgets rise. Companies in Asia/Pacific (30%) and North America (28%) also said they expected their 2010 IT budget to increase.
In relation to software spends, only companies in North America predicated a decline on 2009 figures, with a drop of 2.06% estimated. Enterprises in EMEA (0.45%), Latin America (2.54%) and Asia/Pacific (4.34%) all expect to see a rise in software budgets.
Gartner believes these figures are a reflection on the maturity of the market and suggest that vendors should help clients to better understand where they can cut costs and better utilise resources to spread their IT budgets further.
“Software vendors should continue to build, fund and invest in software sales and marketing programmes, even during tight market conditions to maintain customers and expand revenue opportunities, said Joanne Correia, managing vice president at Gartner. A market downturn is a disrupter that creates great marketing and sales opportunities for organisations prepared to take advantage of the right products, marketing programs and funding.
