Communications and government sectors also among the big spenders

IT spending by financial services firms accounted for one quarter of worldwide server revenue last year, according to research by analyst Gartner.

The communications and government sectors followed, with 14.4 per cent and 11.5 per cent of server spending respectively.

Communications firms were also the fastest growth area for server sales, as strong demand for broadband and increased spending on network upgrades drove spending up 11.3 per, outpacing other industries.

Despite US financial services technology budgets suffering as a result of the credit crunch, IT is still giving companies an edge and serious spending cuts have not reached global levels, said Kiyomi Yamada, principle research analyst at Gartner.

“The recent US credit crunch negatively impacted the US financial services sector's server spending toward the end of 2007. Large projects were delayed or reduced into smaller projects because of financial institutions’ weak financial performances and concern over the economic outlook,” said Yamada.

“However, we did not see serious spending cuts on a global basis. Many financial institutions need to continue to invest in their servers to gain competitive advantages through their IT infrastructure upgrades.”