London – September 30, 2015 – Spiceworks, the professional network for IT, today announced the results of its “2016 State of IT” report, a survey examining the technology budget and adoption trends of IT professionals in North America and EMEA. According to the survey, IT professionals in EMEA expect budgets to remain flat in 2016 despite expected increases in company revenue. Additionally, 55 percent of respondents in EMEA believe IT headcount will remain flat.
According to 64 percent of the IT professionals surveyed in EMEA, technology end-of-life (EOL) will be the driving force behind new hardware, software and services investments in 2016. In fact, Spiceworks’ network data shows 68 and 60 percent of EMEA companies in Spiceworks are still running Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 respectively, operating systems that have reached EOL. Among those planning operating system refreshes in 2016, 53 percent of EMEA respondents said they plan to invest in Windows 10, which is six points higher than the global average. Additionally, 28 percent of EMEA respondents said they’re planning a Windows Server 2003 migration and eight percent said they’re planning a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 migration, a database application that also reaches EOL on April 12, 2016.
Security budgets remain flat y/y as IT pros state they’re underinvesting in security
IT spend on security hardware, software, and services will remain flat year over year with IT professionals in EMEA planning to allocate six percent of their total IT budget to security in 2016. Security solutions will make up five and nine percent of hardware and software budgets next year respectively and seven percent of hosted/cloud budgets. However, 54 percent of EMEA respondents don’t feel their organization is adequately investing in security, and 45 percent don’t feel their company data is adequately protected. Additionally, only 22 percent of respondents in the region said recent high-profile security incidents have led their organization to change its security practices.
Companies in EMEA and North America share similar levels of concern when it comes to IT security. In fact, 76 percent of EMEA respondents and 71 percent of North American respondents believe their organization is at risk of an IT security breach.
“Flat budgets will challenge IT professionals in EMEA to be creative with where they allocate their time and resources next year,” said John Webb, Director of EMEA Marketing at Spiceworks. “Windows 10 upgrades and Windows Server 2003 migrations will continue to influence spending as IT pros focus on projects that will keep businesses running efficiently and directly influence employee productivity.”
Additional survey results from EMEA respondents include:
IT professionals in EMEA prioritizing hardware and software spending
- IT professionals in EMEA plan to spend 36 percent of their 2016 IT budgets on hardware projects, a decrease in allocation of three points year over year. Of that, 20 percent will be spent on desktops, 18 percent will be spent on servers, and 16 percent will be spent on laptops.
- Software spending follows closely behind with IT professionals allocating 31 percent of 2016 budgets to these projects, a decrease of two points from 2015. Of this portion of the budget, 15 percent will be spent on operating systems, 14 percent on virtualization, and 13 percent on productivity suites.
- Fourteen percent of IT budgets will be spent on managed services projects next year, a two point jump year over year. Twenty percent of managed services budgets will be spent on IT services, 15 percent on connectivity/bandwidth, and 14 percent on hosting.
Bright outlook for hosted/cloud based services in EMEA
- IT professionals in EMEA plan to spend 14 percent of their 2016 budgets on hosted/cloud based services next year, a one point jump year over year. Of this portion of the budget, 18 percent will be spent on email hosting, 15 percent on web hosting, and 10 percent on online backup/recovery.
- Though only 28 percent of IT professionals in EMEA stated that hosted/cloud services were important to current business practices, 45 percent believe that these services will be much more important to their organizations in the future.
Methodology
The survey was conducted in July 2015 and included 839 respondents from North America and EMEA. Respondents are among the millions of IT professionals in Spiceworks and represent a variety of company sizes including small-to-medium-sized businesses as well as enterprises. Respondents come from a variety of industries including manufacturing, healthcare, non-profits, education, government, and finance. For more information and a complete list of survey results, visitwww.spiceworks.com/marketing/state-of-it/report/.
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