Research: IT Spending Headed Up

Two recently released survey results show spending on information technology is poised for growth -- although on a modest scale. AMR Research said survey results suggest IT budgets will grow by 2% in 2004 as companies try to catch up on infrastructure upgrades and replace older systems. Slightly more than one-quarter of those dollars (27.2%) will be targeted toward enterprise resource planning applications. The second-largest spending category -- at 16.3% -- will be supply-chain-management applications, according to Boston-based AMR. Along similar lines, the latest SG Cowen Computer User Survey of 675 North American IT users suggests a modest recovery in IT budgets. Survey respondents indicated they are more optimistic about the outlook for their own businesses, which should fuel better growth, said Boston-based SG Cowen Securities Corp., an investment banking firm and securities brokerage. Key leading indicators, such as capacity demand and project priorities, are better but not dramatically so, says SG Cowen.