Enterprise IT Budgets Swing Back into High Gear, New Evans Data Survey; Fifty-Three Percent of IT Managers Expect Larger Development Budgets This Year

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 29, 2004--More than half of IT managers, 53%, report that their IT budgets will increase this year according to EDC's Spring 2004 Enterprise Development Management Issues Survey. Additionally, two-thirds of enterprises have increased the volume of development projects and 20% of IT managers' project volumes have "increased significantly" over the last six months. (http://www.evansdata.com/cgi/relocate.php?key=ent2004_1_1)

Further evidence of the upswing in IT, almost 40% of enterprise companies have increased developer headcounts over the past six months while 13% of companies reduced staff and over 60% of IT managers expect to spend more for application servers next year.

"What we're seeing are more signs of the recovery of IT. Development shops have started pulling dormant projects back out and more projects are being initiated than have been started in several years," said Joe McKendrick, Evans' enterprise analyst. "The big picture depicts a re-energized enterprise development space with increased budgets supporting more outsourcing and new developer hires as well as old projects being dusted off and started back up."

Other findings from the June 2004 survey of more than 400 development or IT managers in companies with more than 1000 employees:

-- Six out of ten enterprise companies outsource at least some of their application development to an outside party, 27% of companies have increased their outsourcing while 8% have reduced it. With 30% of all outsourced projects going to India, it is the most popular destination for offshore development. (http://www.evansdata.com/cgi/relocate.php?key=ent2004_1_2)

-- Three out of four enterprises expect to be running Linux in some capacity by next year and 36% say they either "absolutely" or "probably" plan to deploy Linux on workstations, a 52% increase from last year. (http://www.evansdata.com/cgi/relocate.php?key=ent2004_1_3)

-- Companies are pouring more money than ever into enhancing their system security with 55% increasing their security budgets, up from 48% a year ago. Eighty-four percent of respondents report incidents with viruses and worms.

About Evans Data Corporation

Evans Data Corporation (www.evansdata.com) provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans' syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.