Large Enterprises in China Continue IT Infrastructure Investments, Despite Economic Slowdown

The economic crisis is having a more limited impact on China’s IT hardware industry compared to other countries, according to a new survey by Gartner Inc. More than 50 percent of the large organizations surveyed in China have maintained their hardware budgets at the same level as prior to the downturn, or have even increased their hardware budget. When changes were made, budgets for servers and storage remained relatively stable while budgets for PCs and printers were more likely to be reduced. More than 70 percent of organizations maintained the same budget in 2009 as they had in 2008 for server and storage.

The Gartner survey found that despite the global economic downturn, large Chinese organizations still appear fairly confident of internal conditions and are prepared to continue investing in IT. The survey asked respondents to identify significant drivers of investment in their organization for 2009. The key drivers were in order of priority: improving operational efficiency, improving employee productivity followed by reducing operational costs.

"China remains a relatively buoyant market for IT vendors who can help IT users to achieve greater efficiency and productivity while reducing costs,” said Gartner Research Vice President Jennifer Wu.

Wu said that large organizations in China expect to see an immediate pay-off on their IT investments.

"China's IT users are ready to invest in IT if it can be shown to increase productivity and improve efficiency. In particular, server and storage capacity as a service are gaining higher interest, especially in the banking industry, where it has been proven to reduce the cost of storage and reduce the total cost of ownership,” she said.

The survey also revealed that 24 percent of Chinese organizations have increased their budgets for green IT in 2009. Gartner defines green IT as the optimal use of information and communication technology (ICT) for managing the environmental sustainability of enterprise operations and the supply chain, as well as that of its products, services and resources, throughout their life cycles. Organizations have started to establish measures to protect the environment and are willing to pay for it. In the area of green printing solutions and techniques, for example, this can not only enhance efficiency and achieve significant cost reduction, but also reduce ecological impact, through tactics such as duplex printing, power management and supplies management.

The new report is based on a Gartner survey designed to examine IT infrastructure spending and deployment intentions among large Chinese organizations and gauge the impact of the economic downturn. The survey topics included budget planning, attitudes toward "green IT" and "cloud computing" and plans for major hardware investments, such as PCs, printers, storage and servers. It was part of a Gartner survey of large organizations in nine countries (Australia, China, India, USA, Brazil, France, UK, German and Russia) conducted in February and March 2009.

Additional information is available in the Gartner report "User Survey Analysis: Impact of the Economic Crisis on IT Adoption in Large Organizations in China for 2009". The report is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=990013

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