Irish IT spend to surpass EUR2bn this year

07-09-2006

by Charlie Taylor

IT spend in Ireland is on track to exceed EUR2.35 billion in 2006, up 4 percent on last year.

That's according to the Irish research firm iReach which said on Thursday that the indicators suggest that spending on information technology will surpass that of 2005.

Nonetheless, the company's managing director Oisin Byrne said that there were few highlights in terms of significant spend outside of managed services and networking hardware.

PCs still account for the largest proportion of IT spend, according to iReach, with as much as 22 percent of budgets going on new computers. This marks a decline of 1 percent from last year.

The research firm said that spending on storage and networking was growing strongly. Storage spend is up by almost 8 percent on 2005 due to large-scale purchases from corporates. Networking kit spend has risen by almost 10 percent over the same period, thanks to spending from both enterprises and SMEs.

With regard to IT services there's been little growth except in managed services where spend has grown by almost 25 percent. According to iReach, government spend on managed services slowed over the summer but is expected to pick up again towards the end of the year and increase in 2007.