DR/BC IT Spending To Rise in 2004

The New Year has brought outlooks and forecasts from a range of IT industry pundits. A sampling of their respective predictions reveals a year characterized by a heightened interest in security, disaster recovery and emergency preparedness.

An article on SearchCIO’s Web site entitled: CIO Priorities for 2004
(http://searchcio.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid19_gci942247,00.html) references reports from International Data Corp. and much-quoted Forrester Research that show IT spending would be up as much as 8 percent over 2003, with security and disaster recovery leading the IT priority list.

Another report, released by NaviSite, Inc. an application management developer, and market research firm, Schaaf Inc., found respondents planned spending increases in Web hosting, storage and disaster recovery in 2004. “[The] Survey shows 23 percent of respondents plan an average of 60 percent increase in spending on Web Hosting in support of critical on-line presence,” said the study’s authors. For more information on the study visit: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031230/305119_1.html.

On a bleak note however, some predict that the upcoming year doesn’t look promising for advances in IT security. Crystal I. Ferraro, site editor of SearchSecurity.com offered this perspective in a recent editorial. Ferraro predicts that the state of IT security is going to get worse before it gets better. She predicts a slew of malicious code attacks in 2004 that will exploit hidden vulnerabilities in existing technology.

To read Ferraro’s predictions, Click HERE>>