IP’08 Attendees: Network Management Spending to Remain Steady Despite Economic Downturn

91 Percent of Attendees Surveyed Indicated Spending on Network Management Will Increase or Remain Unchanged in 2009

Network Security, VoIP, Virtualization, and Network Performance Management Projections Most Robust

LONDON – Oct. 2, 2008 – Pundits and prognosticators have varying opinions about where IT spending will go in 2009. But what’s the word on the street from the IT professionals who are actually responsible for network and application performance? According to a survey of IP’08 attendees conducted in London this week by NetQoS® Inc, an overwhelming majority indicated that spending on network management disciplines will not be adversely impacted by the economic downturn. 

Of 100 attendees surveyed, 91 percent indicated that their network management budgets will either increase or remain flat in 2009 when asked if spending will increase, decrease or stay the same on network management disciplines. Only 9 percent indicated that there would be any decrease, while 49 percent indicated that expenditures on network management would increase in 2009. For three disciplines in particular – security, VoIP and network performance management – more than half of the survey respondents indicated spending will increase.  When asked the same question about overall IT infrastructure and management software budgets, 47 percent indicated their budgets will remain the same in 2009 while 39 percent indicated they will increase.

“These results echo the ones we found at Interop New York where network performance and security also topped the list of network management spending priorities,” said Steve Harriman, senior vice president of marketing for NetQoS. “Smart organizations across the world are focusing on network and application performance management to understand how well they are delivering services and whether changes such as adding bandwidth or deploying WAN optimization technologies are worth the investment. This is a critical business need that can’t be ignored, especially when IT budgets are under increased scrutiny.”

When asked about 2009 budgeting for specific IT initiatives, 78 percent of survey respondents indicated that spending for virtualization would increase. In addition, more than half of IP’08 attendees indicated their organizations will spend more money in 2009 on IT initiatives such as wireless LAN/WAN, WAN optimization, and unified communications. Spending on change management and managed services will remain the same, according to a majority of survey respondents. The attendees surveyed represent a cross-section of industries including financial services, technology and telecommunications, government, media and entertainment, professional services, manufacturing, retail, and others.

Recent projections from Gartner state that overall IT spending worldwide will increase by six percent in 2009 and continue to grow in the coming years, despite the economic downturn. According to Gartner, the fastest growing services in 2009 will be software with eight percent projected growth and IT services with seven percent projected growth. Gartner also projected that computing hardware spending will slow to just four percent growth next year, down from 10 percent growth in 2007.

NetQoS has achieved 29 consecutive quarters of double digit year-over-year revenue growth as of the close of its second quarter ending June 30, 2008. During the first half of 2008, NetQoS grew software license revenues 60 percent year-over-year versus the first half of 2007.