INDUSTRY NEWS ABOUT INCREASED IT SPENDING
A recent survey about technology spending plans for small and mid-sized U. S. businesses found that many are planning to increase spending for Web-hosting and storage services in 2004. The survey, conducted by NaviSite and market intelligence firm Schaaf, interviewed information technology (IT) executives about their purchasing plans for products ranging from managed messaging and disaster recovery to virtual private networks and Web hosting.
Results were promising -- 23 percent of the respondents said they planned to spend an average of 60 percent more on Web-hosting products to support critical online presence. The survey also found that 50 percent of the respondents prefer to buy online whenever they can. And 77 percent view a company's Web site as important or extremely important when compared to traditional sales and marketing approaches.
