Industry analyst Ovum has said that CIO confidence in their ability to predict IT spending has been shattered.
According to Ovum, global IT expenditure is expected to rise “slightly” for the first time since the global economic downturn began.
The survey, which polled IT decision makers, revealed that one third expects their budgets to increase in 2010. “Despite this cautious optimism, there are signs that CIOs do not yet view IT as an engine for growth and that 2010 will mostly be a year of reckoning,” Ovum said.
Rhonda Ascierto, senior analyst at Ovum, warned that the survey data, while promising, “does not translate into an IT spending recovery”.
“Realistically, the numbers more likely reflect the effect of previously deep budget cuts, during 2008 and the first half of 2009, which left many IT departments operating at ‘bare-bones’ capacity,” Ascierto said. Ovum reports that the data also showed that the proportion of CIOs that forecast slight decreases and significant increases in IT budgets remained unchanged last year.
“The extent to which IT budgetary expectations were miscued in 2009 is likely to mar the collective psyche of IT decision makers today. The confidence of CIOs in their ability to predict IT spending with a reasonable level of accuracy has been splintered, if not shattered.
"Consequently, Ovum believes that 2010 will be a year of reckoning for IT expenditure,” stated Ascierto.