Britain's leading businesses are continuing to make significant
investment in their networks despite the economic downturn.
New research has shown that almost two thirds (65%) of
organisations have made a significant investment in their network
within the last six months, with a further 15% making investments
in the past year.
Of these, 74% said they were "continuous investors" in new
technology, making ongoing or piecemeal, rather than periodic,
investments in their network.
Carrier and ISP costs accounted for the largest portion of IT
budgets, according to the survey.
Forty board members from
The Times Top 1,000 companies were
interviewed in the survey, which was carried out by independent
research company, Z/Yen Aspect for network equipment manufacturer
3Com.
Paul Malcom, UK country manager of 3Com, said the results showed
investment was now being made in response to demand and that
network technology had to offer users flexibility in the way they
build their local area network cores
The survey showed that 43% of the finance sector's recent network
expenditure was on bandwidth and that 60% of the distribution
sector had made changes to their Wide Area Networks.
The average IT budget:
Internal Hardware 21%
Communication Hardware 11%
Carrier & ISP costs 30%
Servers & Storage Hardware 7%
Server & Storage Software 5%
Wiring 16%
Other 9%
Source Z/Yen Aspect