Apple, RIM: An Historic Collapse in U.S. Corporate IT Spending 8 comments
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
ChangeWave's latest corporate IT purchasing survey shows an accelerating collapse in U.S. business spending that has reached historic proportions - with record pullbacks occurring both in the current 4th quarter and going forward.
In one of the survey's few upbeat findings, the corporate smart phone market continues to show growth - with Research in Motion (RIMM) maintaining its huge lead, but Apple (AAPL) continuing to make inroads in small to medium-sized businesses.
A total of 1,926 respondents involved with IT spending in their organization participated in the ChangeWave survey, conducted November 6-12, 2008.
U.S. Corporate IT Spending Breakdown
Simply put, the IT spending projections for 1st quarter 2009 are abysmal - the worst ever for a ChangeWave survey dating back to 2001. An unprecedented 45% of respondents say their company's IT spending will decrease (or there will be no spending at all) in the 1st quarter - 16-pts worse than our previous survey.
Only 10% say spending will increase - a 3-pt drop from previously.
Most disturbingly, spending is plunging at a time of year when we normally experience seasonal increases. This becomes immediately apparent when you look at the change from each November - beginning with November 2003 - in the Projected IT Spending chart above.
We also asked respondents if their IT spending was on track thus far in the current 4th quarter. By a wide margin, these results are also the worst on record.
Nearly four-in-ten (39%) say they've spent "Less than Planned" so far this quarter - 9-pts worse than in our previous survey. Just 8% have spent "More than Planned" - a 4-pt drop from previously.
Moreover, in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, respondents do not see any immediate improvement occurring in their company's IT spending. In fact, nearly half (48%) now believe IT spending won't pick up for their company until the 3rd quarter of 2009 or later - a two-fold increase since our August survey.
Corporate Smart Phone Market Continues to Grow
In the same survey, we also looked at the corporate smart phone market and found it's actually showing growth. That is - 35% of respondents report their company plans to buy smart phones next quarter, up 1-point from August.
RIM (78%; down 1-pt) continues to garner the dominant share of planned corporate smart phone buying, but the Apple iPhone (22%; up 5-pts) shows considerable momentum going forward.
We note that RIM's corporate share is heavily concentrated among larger companies (over 1,000 employees), while three quarters of Apple's share is among small-to medium-sized companies (under 1,000 employees).
Further confirming that the 3G iPhone is having a positive impact on the corporate market - nearly one-in-five respondents (18%) say the release of the 3G has made their company More Likely to purchase Apple products in the future.
Bottom Line
U.S. corporate IT spending is in the midst of a huge nose-dive, the likes of which hasn't been seen before in a ChangeWave survey dating back to 2001. In short, the current ChangeWave survey findings virtually guarantee that we'll be seeing the technology sector get hammered with pre-announcements before the January earnings season gets underway.
Jean Crumrine co-wrote this article.
This article summarizes the results of a recent ChangeWave survey. ChangeWave runs a research network of 20,000 business, technology and medical professionals -- as well as early adopter consumers -- who spend their everyday lives working on the front line of technological change. For more info on ChangeWave, or to sign up for real-time email alerts on the latest survey findings, click here.
Related Articles
|
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largestSee all
increase in followers
in the last 7 days
Fastest Climbers » -
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most active
Instabloggers.-
1
David Fry
-
2
TraderMark
-
3
Don Dion
-
4
Cliff Wachtel
-
5
Mike Havrilla
Top Instabloggers » -
1
-
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
This article has 8 comments:
Did you see this article were Pogue roasts the Storm:
nytimes.com/2008/1...
The lesson of the article is this: IT AIN'T EASY JACK!
It just is not easy to make a phone like this. Most of all, it is not easy to make an Operating System. MS has been trying for decades, and many think their products are terrible. SO - THIS (the OS) is one of the barriers to entry into the true-smartphone market (i.e. real web and apps capability).
Google was smart to build Android on Linux. So what if the G1 is heavy and ugly - it is a prototype that shows that the OS works. They can build from there.
If Pogue's analysis is accurate, and RIMM can't fix it real quick, then Storm will just be wind in iPhone's sails!
www.nytimes.com/2008/1...
The lesson here is that to write correctly you need one level of education and you appear to have that. To provide guidance and leadership takes a bit more. The good news is that to get to the higher level virtually everyone makes blunders. Count this as one of your "learning blunders" and keep pressing on.
This lesson applies to the article as well. Getting the Blackberry Storm right will take some time. Kudos to RIM for getting out of their "comfort zone" and trying something new with a touch screen. It's good to seem the pushing the limits and developing the technology even if their first product isn't as great as Apple's.