Survey: IT managers say they'll increase spending

Information technology managers expect to increase their spending by 2.4 percent in 2004, according to a survey released Monday by Forrester Research. That's up from the 1.7 percent rise projected six months ago.

The report is based on feedback from IT managers at 878 U.S. companies with 1,000 or more employees. Companies that provide business services in areas such as transportation and construction, along with companies in the finance and insurance sectors, led other industries in year-over-year IT spending increases.

Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said they'd be spending on portals; 56 percent said they'd work on content management; and 48 percent said they'd invest in business intelligence software.

More than half the companies plan more investments in enterprise application integration this year. Companies are split on their choice of primary development platform, with 56 percent choosing Microsoft's .Net and 44 percent opting for J2EE from Sun Microsystems.

About 38 percent of companies are planning to upgrade at least one in four computers. Dell seems to be far ahead in the race for those buyers, with 57 percent of companies preferring machines from the Round Rock, Texas, PC maker.

Thirty-one percent of companies, mostly manufacturing and retail and wholesale companies, said they would increase RFID (radio frequency identification) deployments through the year. Additionally, 60 percent of the surveyed companies said they will build wireless LANs (local area networks) during the next 12 months.