Even in uncertain economic times, enterprise businesses need software to do business. They’re also willing to pay for it.

A new study by Gartner says that spending on enterprise software is expected to rise 4.5 percent in 2012 over 2011. That’s only half a percentage point less than Gartner’s (News - Alert) original projection of 5 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

The growth does come with some caveats, however.

“The global marketplace is still experiencing a series of conflicting and contrasting economic news reports, and the full impact of the economic uncertainty on the enterprise software markets may not be readily assessable until the end of the first half of 2012," Tom Eid, research vice president at Gartner, said. "Spending in 2012 is anticipated to focus on industry-specific applications; upgrades to established, mission-critical software; integrating and securing established systems and infrastructure; and software as a service (SaaS (News - Alert)) deployments representing extensions to, or replacement of, existing applications and new solutions.”

The major application areas are business intelligence; content, communications and collaboration; customer relationship management, digital content creation, enterprise resource planning, personal productivity software, project and portfolio management and supply chain management.

Enterprise resource planning in particular is the biggest market segment, with projected revenue of $24.9 billion this year. Office suites come in second at $16.5 billion. Business intelligence is expected to reach $13 billion, while CRM packages are expected to exceed that.

Businesses are looking to shift upfront capital expenses to operational expenses. This usually means turning to the cloud, using Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) and virtualization services instead of traditional software packages. Vendors are positioning them as more cost-effective than conventional software packages and offering a simple upgrade path.

“After more than a decade of SaaS and cloud service use, adoption continues to grow and evolve within the enterprise application markets. This is occurring as tighter capital budgets demand leaner alternatives, popularity and familiarity with the model increase, and interest in SaaS and cloud computing grows,” Eid said. “Adoption varies between and within markets. Although use is expanding to a wider range of applications and solutions, the most widespread use is still characterized by horizontal applications with common processes, among distributed virtual workforce teams and within Web 2.0 initiatives.”

SaaS services are expected to grow over the next several years, from 11 percent of enterprise spending in 2010 to 16 percent in 2015. Eid said that this was due to buyers weighing their options and increasing confidence as the economy recovers.

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