IT Spending Expected To Cool In October

Spending on information technology products and services is expected to cool a bit next month, but the overall financial condition of the tech sector is expected to continue improving, a market research firm said Thursday.

Buyer intent, a reflection of IT demand, fell to 1041 for October from 1085 in September, International Data Corp. said in its FutureScan report based on leading market metrics and customer surveys.

"Both line of business executives and CIOs (chief information officers) are more conservative in their current spending expectations than we have seen over the past few months," IDC analyst Carol Glasheen said in a statement. "The summer optimism has faded slightly and with budgeting season in full swing for many companies, we are seeing more convergence in their views of the next 12 months."

The FutureScan market indicator for the tech sector, however, rose to 1073 for October from 1032 in September. The reason is revenue forecasts for IT vendors have stopped plummeting and are beginning to climb back up, IDC said.

IT spending is expected to increase over the next 12 months at a moderate pace of nearly 7 percent, according to the research firm.Under FutureScan, an index value of 1,000 indicates zero growth and each 10 points representing about 1 percent of expected growth or contraction.