Chief information officers (CIOs) at enterprises worldwide remain cautious about boosting their technology spending, and the money they do spend will concentrate on security and business intelligence, said a survey released Tuesday.
According to Gartner Executive Programs (EXP), a unit of the Gartner research company, the most recent annual poll of CIOs points to signs of a global recovery.
In the survey of more than 950 CIOs from organizations in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, the Middle East, India, and South Africa, Gartner EXP found that the corporate heads of IT anticipate a technology spending increase of just 1.4 percent during 2004. About 40 percent believe that this increase won't happen until the second half of the year.
"Even though the global economy is on the up-turn, CIOs still show a lot of caution," said Marcus Blosch, a vice president and research director for Gartner EXP. "They're being very conservative, laying down the foundations of growth, but not aggressively pushing for it.
"Call it a shifting of gears," he added, "from a dampened mode to a growth mode."
