A newly published survey by Spiceworks (News - Alert) has looked into the spending priorities of North American IT professionals in the year 2014.
Spiceworks’ report, “2014 State of IT Budget Report”, revealed that in 2014, IT professionals are expected to invest an average $300,000 on IT products and services, and a considerable percentage of the IT budget will be spent on newly emerging hosted/cloud-based and managed services.
For the survey, Spiceworks said it put 450 IT professionals under the tech microscope for a clear read on where their dollars are headed in 2014. Respondents were queried on IT budget outlook, how IT pros plan to spend the money, and key tech investments on their radar in the next twelve months.
The survey showed that 79 percent of respondents indicated their IT spending will increase this year, while 45 percent expected an increase in the number of employees. Most of those surveyed were optimistic about the growth prospects within their companies.
“Improvements in the North American economy, coupled with aging application and hardware infrastructures, such as Windows XP-based environments, are driving IT spending this year” said Kathryn Pribish of Spiceworks. “IT professionals are cautiously optimistic and are investing in the technologies that will drive their organizations forward and make employees more productive.”
Some of the highlights of the survey note:
- 60 percent of the respondents said they will be spending on operating systems and productivity suites for end-user environments, 50 percent are going to buy virtualization solutions and 49 percent would buy security software;
- In 2014, those who are looking to buy virtualization, productivity, OS, security or database software solutions said that they will be spending most of the IT budget on upgrading and maintaining existing applications;
- On cloud services, 49 percent of the respondents preferred their budget to be spent on Web hosting, 44 percent wanted email hosting and 38 percent were looking for new online backup/recovery solutions.
The survey said that even though only 14 percent of the IT budget will be spent on cloud services, there will be an increase in spending in the future as IT professionals seek more security and control of cloud services.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson