Businesses are delaying IT upgrades

Hardware and software refresh plans put on the backburner due to downturn, says survey

IT managers are pushing back infrastructure refreshes due to economic uncertainty

Companies are postponing plans for IT infrastructure upgrades due to the challenging economic conditions, according to a study by the National Computing Centre (NCC).

The research polled more than 100 UK businesses and found that 23 per cent are delaying previously planned hardware refreshes, while the same proportion of respondents said software revamp plans have been put on hold. Some 30 per cent of companies surveyed said timescales for IT infrastructure upgrades have been pushed back.

Confusion generated by the variety of new technologies available in the market may make decisions linked to eventual upgrades more difficult for businesses, said the NCC.

The delivery of applications under the software as a service (SaaS) model is growing in popularity and 30 per cent of companies see it as either a very important (16 per cent) or important (14 per cent) technology for them.

By comparison, the provision of services over the cloud is seen by 18 per cent of respondents as of medium importance and of little importance by 14 per cent of those polled, while 39 per cent are yet to make up their minds about the benefits.

Virtualisation technology is seen as a popular tool to help business tackle the cost-saving challenge and reduce carbon footprints. The survey shows that 42 per cent of organisations have implemented the technology, while a further 28 per cent are planning to do so in the near future. According to the study, desktop virtualisation is the next area that is beginning to gain momentum but that is a more complex task as it has a direct impact on users.

“Virtualisation has almost been seen as a universal panacea for both cost saving and providing a greener IT environment,” said Cliff Mills, NCC's research manager.

“However, the easy first phase of virtualisation has been done and the next steps will require even more careful planning and analysis to achieve real benefits,” he said.

The survey confirms a trend whereby IT budgets are coming under severe pressure and any projects viewed as non-essential or only affecting the back office are coming under increased scrutiny, said Steve Fox, managing director of NCC’s evaluation centre.

“This will force companies to look more seriously at alternative delivery infrastructure such as SaaS and cloud computing,” he said.