As Spending Picks Up, Where Will the MoneyGo?

Our survey showed that IT executives are conservativelyoptimistic that spending will pick up - 30 percent said thatit would happen in the first half of 2003, and 86 percentsaid that company performance is an important factor whenmaking decisions about IT, which may be a sign that theyhave confidence their company will benefit from theeconomy's gradual recovery. [Editor's note: At the time thisstory was reported, most companies were still in theplanning stages of their 2003 IT budget.]

In addition, 45 percent said they plan to accelerate spending oninfrastructure upgrades, such as servers; 30 percent expect to investin CRM; and 29 percent plan to increase desktop upgrades andreplacement expenditures. Other popular areas for increased spendinginclude security and legacy system migration (25 percent), ande-commerce and software upgrades (24 percent). Rubin says that he seesinfrastructure consolidation as a popular trend.