Users planning upgrading investments

Spiceworks has started to share the headline findings from its 2019 State of the IT Budgets report with one of the main conclusions that investments are going to be made to upgrade ageing infrastructure.

The research found that 90% of European companies were expecting budgets to grow or at worst stay flat next year. Those planning to increase spending were largely looking at upgrading outdated infrastructure.

The Spiceworks study comes just a couple of months after Microsoft indicated that it was going to be pushing the upgrade message firmly at users working with Windows 7 over the course of the fourth quarter and into 2019.

Making sure that the infrastructure was up to date was the top prority followed closely by improving security defences.

Hardware vendors across Europe will be cheered by the breakdown of the numbers showing that money is being put aside for desktops, laptops, servers and power. On the software side the top area was operating systems, with security also getting a decent chunk of the spending.

When it comes to managed services the highest amount of budget will be directed to those that can help with hosting and storage. Managed business applications and security followed.

GDPR is also a continuing feature of the market with decision makers across Europe planning to spend on keeping in line with the compliance regulations.

“When it’s time to upgrade or purchase new tech, organisations entrust IT professionals to find the best solution to meet the needs of the business,” said Peter Tsai, senior technology analyst at Spiceworks.

“For major tech purchases, the CEO or finance manager may be involved to sign on the dotted line, but in most cases, it’s the IT decision maker who conducts the in-depth research, evaluates the vendors, and ultimately chooses the best solution for the business,” he added.