Many Companies Planning Hardware Purchases

Austin Business Journal reports: The recession and increased caution on spending are leading small and medium-sized businesses to hang on to their servers and laptops longer these days, but many are planning to make some big hardware and software purchases in the next six months, a new survey finds.

Spiceworks Inc.'s third quarter survey of more than 1,000 IT professionals shows that many small and medium-sized companies are squeezing an extra year out of their hardware. Still, 68 percent of those companies plan to add new hardware to their networks in coming months. Among those, 56 percent plan to buy desktops, 55 percent will be in the market for laptops, 45 percent plan to buy servers, 31 percent printers and 27 percent new network devices. Only about 13 percent plan to purchase netbooks.

The IT budgets of small and medium-sized businesses took a beating in 2009. Thirty-nine percent of such companies cut their current year budgets compared with last year; 31 percent kept their budgets the same and the remaining 30 percent actually grew their budgets this year. The majority, or 60 percent, said they had to delay or cancel at least one project so far this year.

The survey found that the average new hardware order is expected to include 13 desktops, 10 laptops and 2 servers.

Just over half of respondents are planning to buy new software. Of those, 32 percent say they will purchase security and anti-spam solutions in the next six months. Twenty-five percent are planning to buy backup and recovery software or services.

“It’s good to see small and medium businesses showing positive signs of growth in technology spending,” said Jay Hallberg, co-founder and vice president of marketing for Austin-based Spiceworks. “Most are clearly ready to buy and it will be interesting to watch how these plans play out among different geographies, industries and company sizes. We will track these and other technology trends of interest in future studies.”

On the hiring front, 22 percent of companies say they plan to hire additional full-time or part-time staff for their technology department in the next six months; 3 percent say they plan to cut staff in that department.