IT Spending May Not Be So Recession-Proof, After All

A 2008 recession is likely to affect IT spending, according to a recent survey.

Astaro, which sells security appliances, announced survey results Thursday that show 52% of 250 Interop Las Vegas attendees said a recession would likely impact IT spending.

That's up almost 20 percentage points from a survey three weeks earlier during the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Gartner Research recently reported that it doesn't see evidence of widespread IT budget cuts, but "negative economic news appears to be making enterprise buyers more cautious."

Gartner has said that if the economy continues to slow down, companies could take "aggressive steps to reduce or even freeze IT budgets."

That's quite a departure from last month, when Astaro declared that IT security budgets appeared recession-proof, after 67% of 300 RSA attendees surveyed said they don't believe their security spending behavior would be affected by a recession this year.

Astaro said the differences between the two survey results could reflect differences in attendee demographics or event focus. Or, they could reflect increased IT spending fears from media reports about an impending recession, Astaro said.

Astaro CEO & cofounder Jan Hichert said security threats continue to increase, pushing companies to keep pace, despite financial constraints. That means solutions that continuously add new layers of protection will become increasingly important, as small and midsize companies try to cut spending through consolidation, Hichert said.

If Astaro effectively promotes its single-security solution with free updates and improvements, that could be good news for the company.