Companies in the United States and Europe expect to spend two percent less on IT in 2009 after a flat 2008, with SAP AG seen as most likely to benefit from any increase in spending, according to a UBS survey.
Three-quarters of 100 chief information officers surveyed said they did not wish to cancel maintenance contracts - important sources of recurring revenue for software providers - but 70 percent said they hoped to negotiate better terms.
Revenues of the companies surveyed for the report published on Monday ranged from two billion dollars to more than 10 billion dollars annually and they represented industries ranging from communications to healthcare to utilities.
Deployments of server computers are expected to slow, UBS said, with spending on Microsoft Corp Windows servers expected to grow two percent in 2009 after three percent in 2008, and open-source Linux server growth is set to be flat at one percent.
Linux server software is the best-selling product of Red Hat Inc and is also a key sales driver for Novell Inc. Averaging out positive and negative responses, a net 12 percent said they were likely to increase spending on German business software maker SAP's products in 2009.
Twelve percent said they would likely cut spending with Microsoft, 15 percent said they expected to spend less with Oracle Corp and 19 percent said they would probably spend less with IBM.