CIO Magazine Tech Poll Highlights: IT Spending in October 2004

After a slight dip in September, the CIO Magazine Tech Poll results this month
indicate that CIOs are predicting spending growth of 8.7% over the next 12 months, compared to last month's 7.4%.

* Security software continues to be the strongest sector in the poll with roughly 63.5% of respondents planning to increase spending (down from 65.1% in September).

* Data Networking Equipment has increased significantly to 51.5% in October (up from 42.0% in September), making it the second spending priority of CIOs in this month's poll.

* The outlook for Computer Hardware spending increased to 51.3% of panelists planning to increase spending vs. 49.6% in September.

* This month's poll had two special questions for panelists. The first question focused on which government policy was the most critical to the successful management of CIOs' IT programs. Nearly half of the respondents cited "less regulation" as the most critical (48.9%), while other policies included tax cuts (23.4%), accelerated depreciation (16.2%), more regulation (7.2%) and more H-1B visas (4.3%).

* The second question asked if organizations had plans to implement a voice over IP (VOIP) strategy in the next 12 months. Nearly half of the CIOs polled indicated that they currently had no plans to implement a VOIP strategy (48.5%). The remaining half of respondents indicated that they had already installed a VOIP system (25.5%) or that they would implement one in the next 12 months (25.9%).