When changes were made, budgets for servers and storage remained relatively stable while budgets for personal computers (PCs) and printers were more likely to be cut. More than 70 per cent of organisations kept the same budget in 2009 as they had in 2008 for server and storage.
According to a Gartner report conducted in May, 'User Survey Analysis: Impact of the Economic Crisis on IT Adoption in Large Organizations in China for 2009', despite the global economic downturn, large Chinese organisations still appear fairly confident of internal conditions and are prepared to continue investing in IT.
The survey asked respondents to identify significant drivers of investment in their organisation for the year. The key drivers were, in order of priority: improving operational efficiency, improving employee productivity followed by reducing operational costs.
"China remains a relatively buoyant market for IT vendors who can help IT users to achieve greater efficiency and productivity while reducing costs," said Gartner research vice president Jennifer Wu.
Wu said large organisations in China expect to see an immediate pay-off on their IT investments.
"China's IT users are ready to invest in IT if it can be shown to increase productivity and improve efficiency. In particular, server and storage capacity as a service are gaining higher interest, especially in the banking industry, where it has been proven to reduce the cost of storage and reduce the total cost of ownership," she said.
The survey also revealed that 24 per cent of Chinese organisations have increased their budgets for green IT in 2009.
Gartner defines green IT as the optimal use of information and communication technology for managing the environmental sustainability of enterprise operations and the supply chain, as well as that of its products, services and resources, throughout their life cycles.
Organisations have started to establish measures to protect the environment and are willing to pay for it. In the area of green printing solutions and techniques, for example, this not only enhances efficiency and achieves significant cost reduction, but also reduces ecological impact, through tactics such as duplex printing, power management and supplies management.