Hard Facts: March 18, 2002

In the security category, antivirus heads this list of needs and was ranked as a high spending priority by 70 percent of respondents from midsize companies.

Among hardware/software categories, desktops lead the way in terms of priority for spending, followed by networking hardware and storage. Within the storage category, specialties such as enterprise backup and storage systems management software hold promise, while for networking hardware the same is true for switches, routers, and network hardware appliances.

Finally, budget conditions for midsize companies may be easing. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said they expect their company's IT budget to increase in the next 12 months, while only 13 percent expect a decrease. This is even more optimistic than the January survey of small businesses, in which 48 percent of respondents said they expected to see budgets increasing over the next year. As such, the midsize company market may hold better sales opportunities than smaller businesses.