16 Jun 2009

IT spending 'put on hold for firms'

Many businesses are putting IT spending on the backburner during the economic downturn and are only investing in projects that will bring fast results, one industry expert has claimed.

Laura DuBois, research director for storage software at IDC, argued that companies are now more aware that they need to reduce IT costs and as such are looking at alternative methods to make cutbacks.

Ms DuBois stated: "Although this means lower sales in the short term, it also means that there is a ready backlog of projects that can be switched on very quickly."

One such way could be the outsourcing of IT management services to a hosted exchange company which handles the day-to-day handling of data, often at a reduced cost than that which would be spent by the firm.

A report by Gartner recently revealed some of the other methods businesses could look to employ to reduce costs, including the renegotiation of long-standing contracts and looking to consolidate data centres to reduce maintenance.