ChangeWave survey shows collapse in U.S. corporate IT spending (but a little good news for Apple)
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 21, 2008 at 12:17pm
ChangeWave’s latest corporate IT survey shows an accelerating collapse in U.S. business spending that has now reached historic proportions—with record pullbacks occurring both in the current fourth quarter and going forward.
In one of the survey’s few upbeat findings, the corporate smart phone market continues to show growth—with Research In Motion (RIMM) maintaining its huge lead, and Apple continuing to make inroads into small to medium-sized businesses.
A total of 1,926 respondents involved with IT spending in their organization participated in the survey, conducted Nov. 6-12, 2008. The results show IT spending projections for Quarter One 2009 to be the worst ever for a ChangeWave survey, dating back to 2001. An unprecedented 45 percent of respondents say their company’s IT spending will decrease (or there will be no spending at all) in the first quarter—16 points worse than the previous ChangeWave survey. Only 10 percent say spending will increase – a three-point drop from previously.
“The IT purse strings are almost completely on lockdown,” says Tobin Smith, founder of ChangeWave Research and editor of ChangeWave Investing. “At the very least, these results do not bode well for a 1st half 2009 economic upturn.”
Not only is IT spending plunging, but it comes at a time of year when there are normally seasonal increases. This becomes immediately apparent when you look at the change from each November—beginning with November 2003—in the Projected IT Spending chart above.
The survey also asked respondents if their IT spending was on track so far in the current fourth quarter. By a wide margin, these results are also the worst on record—with 39 percent saying they’ve spent “Less than Planned” so far this quarter (nine points worse than in the previous ChangeWave survey). Just eight percent have spent “More than Planned”—a four-point drop from previously.
What’s more, in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, respondents don’t see any immediate improvement occurring in their company’s IT spending. In fact, nearly half (48 percent) now believe IT spending won’t pick up for their company until the third quarter of 2009 or later—a two-fold increase since the August ChangeWave survey.
The survey also looked at the corporate smart phone market, and found it is actually showing growth, with 35 perdent of respondents reporting their company plans to buy smart phones next quarter, up one point from August. Research In Motion (78 percent, down one point) continues to garner the dominant share of planned corporate smart phone buying, but the Apple iPhone (22 percent, up five points) shows considerable momentum going forward.
ChangeWave notes that RIM’s corporate share is heavily concentrated among larger companies (over 1,000 employees), while three quarters of Apple’s share is among small-to-medium sized companies (under 1,000 employees). Further confirming that the 3G iPhone is having a positive impact on the corporate market, nearly one-in-five respondents (18 percent) say the release of the 3G has made their company “More Likely” to purchase Apple products in the future.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
