The slowing economy has already affected IT buying patterns, according to research by analyst IDC.

But the figures suggest that IT managers have used this to their advantage, wringing better deals out of their server suppliers.

IDC's quarterly server shipment figures show that spending on servers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa dropped by 3.8 per cent year on year to $4bn (£2.7bn), the largest drop IDC has recorded since 2005.

The decline was particularly marked in Western Europe.

But IDC also reported that the number of servers being sold rose by 4.9 per cent in the same period, suggesting that buyers had beaten suppliers down on price.

"The economic downturn is forcing European companies to slow their server spending and review their buying behaviour," said Nathaniel Martinez, director of European enterprise servers at IDC.

"Purchases are now driven by critical needs and much higher justification for expenditure."

IDC also reported that most of this growth in units shipped was accounted for by x86-based servers, which are frequently deployed in virtualised environments.

"Organisations in most sectors are focusing on projects that reduce costs rather than adding new capacity," said Martinez.