Spending Priority Rising For Servers, Intranet Development

Small businesses placed slightly lower priority on hardware and software spending in July compared with a year earlier, while the priority rating of Internet categories held steady, according to the monthly CRN Business Spending Survey.

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In Internet-related categories, there were some surprises. While security remained the No. 1 priority, its rating dropped slightly. Wireless technology, another hot area, was down even more. Gains in intranet development, VoIP and application integration and hosting made up the difference, though.

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In hardware and software categories, desktops declined most, reflecting the movement toward mobile computing. Notebooks also declined, but only slightly. Server categories, meanwhile, rose as spending priorities.