eWEEK Readers Say Money Is Tight

More eWEEK readers have had their budgets cut than have had them increased – but a significant number have had a small increase.

The country’s budget is in austerity mode, and public sector organisations are struggling to meet strict requirements to cut costs by all means necessary. The private sector is free to do what it wants within the current economic constraints, and has been predicted to increase this year. This may explain the mixed picture emerging from our poll of eWEEK readers.

Some readers get more money

Twenty-three percent of readers actually reported a small increase in their budget, although nearly 29 percent said their budget had been “slashed to the bone”.

Perhaps surprisingly, a significant number (around 12 percent) said their budget had increased dramatically – perhaps signifiying companies which have turned around since the financial crisis.

Overall, the picture was really mixed. Around 18 percent had the same budget, and 13 percent had their budget reduced a little.

To make sense of this, let’s add some figures together. A total of 42 percent had some budget cuts, and  and around 35 percent had increases.

It looks like more of you have had cuts, but if you consider that one option had an emotive name “slashed to the bone”, we wouldn’t lean too heavily on the figures.

It looks to us that there are winners and losers, but the overall picture is pretty flat.

What helps you choose your IT kit?

For our next poll, we want to know what factors you consider when buying new IT equipment. Where do you go for advice?

Do you use Twitter, Facebook or other social media? Do you trawl the web for comparative reviews? Do you pound the floor of tradeshows, or just ask salesmen to give you their pitch? Or do you have a favoured colleague whose opinion you trust?

As always, if you have a better idea, tick the “other” box and tell us the information source we didn’t think of.

And this time round, you can also tick as many boxes as you like. So we won’t be offended if any of you click anything other than our preferred choice: eWEEK Europe.