IP’09 Attendees: Network Management Spending to Rise as Economic Prospects Begin to Improve

61 Percent of Attendees Surveyed Indicate that Spending on Network Management Will Increase in 2010

Application Performance, Network Performance, Security, and Virtualization Top the List of Priorities

LONDON – Oct. 8, 2009 – IT professionals from a cross-section of industries anticipate an increase in budgets in 2010 to help manage application performance across increasingly complex global networks. This is the conclusion of a survey of more than 100 IP’09 attendees conducted in London this week by NetQoS® Inc., which found:

- That 54 percent of attendees expect overall IT infrastructure and management software budgets to increase in 2010. A further 32 percent expect budgets to remain the same, while only 14 percent indicated that they expect budgets to decrease in 2010.

- That 61 percent of attendees surveyed expect their 2010 budgets for network management disciplines – including fault and availability, configuration, network performance, application performance, security, and VoIP – to rise, an increase of 12 percent when compared to 2009 budget forecasts. About 29 percent expect budgets to remain the same in 2010, while only 10 percent expect them to decrease.

- The top three network management priorities are application performance, network performance and security, with more than 68 percent of survey respondents indicating that budgets will increase for these disciplines. Last year, security, VoIP and network performance management topped the list with more than half of the survey respondents indicated spending will increase.

- When asked about 2010 budgeting for specific IT initiatives, virtualization was identified as the top priority by 73 percent of survey respondents. Last year, virtualization was also identified as the priority initiative, with 78 percent of survey respondents indicated that spending would increase in 2009. 

- WAN optimization, unified communications, and wireless LAN/WAN came in a distant second to virtualization as budget priorities, with just under half of IP’09 attendees expecting to spend more on these initiatives in 2010.

“This survey is encouraging but with budgets continuing to be closely scrutinized, IT decision makers are challenged with investing wisely while providing optimal application performance across the network,” said Steve Harriman, senior vice president of marketing for NetQoS. “Network and application performance management technologies continue to provide the visibility and control needed to optimize IT service delivery and manage trends such as virtualization without over-spending as we move into 2010.”

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.