An article in today's FT reports the unsurprising conclusion of some recent TechMarketView research - that corporate IT spending has fallen this year.
What I found more surprising was the finding that "80-90% of annual IT expenditure is devoted to maintenance and minor upgrades of systems installed in the last four years". I'd estimate that for us about 60-70% of spend is to "keep the lights on", and 30-40% is on new projects that add new value. I'd be worried if I thought it was only 10-20% (in fact I'd sooner it was 50%).
Comments (1)
Adam
Just to point out that this was a misquote in the FT. I actually said that "80-90% of all IT spend was on systems installed one or more years ago". the point being that we all home in on the downturn in "new projects, new products, new customers" but actually the vast bulk of expenditure is on 'keeping the lights on'.
Actually in a downturn, those involved in 'support for existing systems' actually do better than the new, new suppliers - as all the current results show.
BTW - it is only a couple of % points retraction in spend. Nothing like the auto industry!
Posted by Richard Holway | February 23, 2009 4:19 PM
Posted on February 23, 2009 16:19