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AUSTIN, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 01/22/14 -- Spiceworks, the vertical network for IT, today announced the results of a new survey examining the 2014 spending priorities of IT professionals in North America as well as their view on growth within their organizations. On average, IT professionals surveyed plan to invest more than $300,000 on IT products and services this year, and 79 percent said their 2014 IT budgets would increase or remain the same over last year. Respondents are also optimistic about the prospects for growth within their companies. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed expect their organizations' revenues to increase and 45 percent expect company headcount to rise.

"Improvements in the North American economy coupled with aging application and hardware infrastructures, such as Windows XP-based environments, are driving IT spending this year," said Kathryn Pribish, Voice of IT program manager at Spiceworks. "IT professionals are cautiously optimistic and are investing in the technologies that will drive their organizations forward and make employees more productive."

The report, "2014 State of IT Budget Report" found that IT professionals plan to spend 44 percent of their 2014 IT budget on hardware solutions, 31 percent on software products, and 14 and 11 percent on hosted/cloud-based and managed services respectively. Additional highlights from the survey include:

IT professionals prioritizing hardware investments in 2014

• According to the survey, IT professionals will prioritize hardware investments in 2014 including desktops, laptops, networking and server solutions. Seventy-nine percent of those IT professionals plan to purchase desktops and 71 percent will invest in laptops this year. Additionally, 73 percent will purchase networking solutions and 69 percent will invest in new servers.
• Desktops and laptops will account for an average of 26 and 14 percent of the surveyed IT professionals' hardware budgets respectively. These IT professionals will spend an average of 19 percent of their hardware budget on servers and 13 percent on networking equipment.

Software investments account for nearly one-third of annual IT budget

• When asked what software IT professionals were planning to purchase in 2014, 60 percent said they expect to purchase operating systems and productivity suites for end-user environments. Fifty percent of respondents are planning to purchase virtualization solutions and 49 percent expect to buy security software.
• IT professionals will spend an average of 22 percent of their 2014 software budget on productivity suites, 21 percent on operating systems, 15 percent on virtualization solutions and 13 percent on security products.
• Among the IT professionals planning to purchase virtualization, productivity, operating system, security or database software solutions in 2014, an overwhelming majority will upgrade or maintain existing applications. However, among those purchasing new software in 2014, virtualization leads the way with 39 percent of IT professionals choosing to purchase a new offering.

Cloud services budgets focused on existing services

• As expected, the overwhelming majority of IT professionals planning to invest in a cloud solution will continue to purchase an existing service. However, 32 percent expect to purchase a new cloud-based productivity suite and 31 percent are planning to deploy a new online backup/recovery solution.
• When asked which cloud services IT professionals are planning to purchase in 2014, 49 percent said web hosting, 44 percent highlighted email hosting and 38 percent said they would be purchasing an online backup/recovery product.
• Among those planning to purchase a cloud service in 2014, IT professionals said they would spend an average of 15 percent of their cloud budget on online backup/recovery products and email hosting. Respondents said they would spend 12 percent of their 2014 cloud budget on web hosting solutions.

Managed services get a fair share of 2014 IT budgets

• Of the IT professionals who plan to purchase managed services in 2014, 53 percent said they would purchase connectivity/bandwidth services, 49 percent cited storage/backup/archiving services, and 47 percent said they would purchase a hosting service.
• Among those planning to purchase a managed service, IT professionals will spend an average of 17 percent of their managed services budget on storage/backup/archiving services. Of those, 36 percent will invest in a new storage/backup/archiving service this year.

Methodology
The survey was conducted in November 2013 and included 450 respondents from North America. Respondents are among the more than 4 million IT professionals in Spiceworks and represent a variety of company sizes including small-to-medium businesses as well as enterprises. Respondents come from a variety of industries including manufacturing, healthcare, non-profits, education, government, IT service providers and finance.

About Spiceworks Voice of IT®
The Spiceworks Voice of IT market insights program publishes statistics, trends and opinions collected from IT professionals worldwide. More than 640,000 IT professionals in over 100 countries have joined the program to share information and feedback on the technology issues important to them.

About Spiceworks
Spiceworks is the vertical network that more than 4 million IT professionals use to connect with one another and over 2,800 technology brands. The company simplifies how IT professionals discover, buy and manage more than $500 billion in technology products and services each year. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Spiceworks is backed by Austin Ventures, Adams Street Partners, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Shasta Ventures and Tenaya Capital. For more information visit http://www.spiceworks.com.

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Spiceworks and Voice of IT are registered trademarks of Spiceworks, Inc. All other names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.