What Does 2013 Hold for Technology? Wedbush Decision Metrics Poll Reveals IT Managers Tightening Budgets, Shifting Spending Priorities

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Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) January 28, 2013

The Wedbush Equity Research Technology Team in conjunction with Wedbush Decisions Metrics, an on-demand primary market intelligence service of Wedbush Securities, announced survey results highlighting a shift in priorities for leading technology companies. The results reveal many IT managers are shifting to maintenance mode as outlook remains cautious and IT budgets tighten.

“In our view, the key theme is that caution is likely to continue into 2013, with companies apparently focused on managing project risk,” said Rohit Chopra, Managing Director, Equity Research, Wedbush Securities. “Results from our Decision Metrics survey of IT Managers suggest caution, as spending priorities are beginning to shift. The top three IT priorities we see are security, disaster recovery and storage.” The most important data points from the survey are:

• IT managers continue to expect a challenging year ahead, with IT budgets expected to grow by no more than 5%, about half the growth expectations from the same period last year;
• IT managers anticipate more of the budget to focus on maintenance spending versus new IT initiatives, similar to recession levels, as uncertainty regarding the near-term economic environment is likely holding back investment in new projects; and
• Security continues to hold the leadership position in the IT priority list, but disaster recovery jumped to second overall, from 13th, and storage spending crept up to third from the fifth position in our last survey.

Additional Wedbush Decision Metrics’ survey highlights include:

• Wedbush's proprietary IT survey continues to point to the product cycles of tablets and the secular trend of cloud computing as continuing to be important priorities for IT managers.
• Results from the survey indicated spending sentiment for communications equipment in general, has moderately declined, with fewer IT managers looking to spend more in 2013.
• As spending shifted to maintenance and away from new projects, enterprise software projects were identified as a less critical priority. Notable exceptions were newer technologies for platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and social computing, as well as integration infrastructure categories. Traditional application categories saw the biggest declines in absolute priority.

To view a complete copy of the survey results please contact the Wedbush Equity Research team at (213) 688-4529.

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About Wedbush Decision Metrics
The Wedbush Decision Metrics service delivers customized, quantitative, survey-based research to facilitate analysis of products and industries. We provide our clients with direct access to specific target audiences via a global panel of survey respondents. Wedbush Decision Metrics serves leading institutional investment, venture capital, private equity, and corporate entities, providing real-time knowledge and insights in the healthcare, technology, and consumer industries.

About Wedbush Securities
Founded in 1955, Wedbush Securities is a leading investment firm that provides brokerage, clearing, investment banking, equity research, public finance, fixed income sales and trading, and asset management to individual, institutional and issuing clients. Headquartered in Los Angeles, with over 100 offices, the firm focuses on relentless service, client financial safety, continuity, and advanced technology. Wedbush Securities is the largest subsidiary of holding company WEDBUSH, Inc., which also includes affiliated firms Wedbush Bank, Wedbush Capital Partners, Wedbush Opportunity Partners, and Lime Brokerage LLC. Follow us on Twitter @Wedbush.

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