The software market appears to be recession-proof – this is one of the findings of Price Waterhouse’s IT 100 poll of 100 data processing managers into the impact of an economic recession on information technology expenditure in the UK. The poll discovered that 74% of computing budgets will not be cut in the short term, while 15% will actually increase; however, in the longer term a recession will cut around a third of data processing budgets. Computer hardware and services will be hardest hit with 35% of companies cutting back on services, 28% on hardware in the short term, the figures rising to 43% and 34% respectively if a recession persists. Whatever happens, less than one quarter of British companies will reduce their software budgets, although software projects may suffer from cuts in staffing. And two thirds of the companies polled said that they would be using information technology in mapping their cost reduction strategies.
