APAC cos to hike software budget by 4.4% in 2010:

Even as companies in the Asia Pacific region continue to be conservative with their total IT budgets in 2010, software budgets are expected to increase by 4.4 per cent on an average in 2010, a study on Tuesday said.According to a survey by research firm Gartner, companies in the Asia Pacific plan to increase their software budgets by 4.4 per cent on an average in 2010, while overall IT budgets were expected to decline by 3.1 per cent on an average.
India-based respondents were the most optimistic, with 42 per cent of the respondents intending to increase their IT budget in 2010, followed by China at 32 per cent.
On the other hand, Malaysia-based respondents remain pessimistic, with the largest number of respondents intending to decrease their spending (52 per cent), followed by Singapore (48 per cent).
The estimates of a 4.4 per cent increase in software spend for the APAC region is higher than all other regions surveyed including Europe, the Middle East and Africa, North America and Latin America.
About 38 per cent of the organisations surveyed said they expect to increase their software budgets in 2010, while 31 per cent said they would increase their overall IT budget.
Gartner surveyed 323 IT managers in Australia [ Images ], Singapore, Malaysia, China, India and Hong Kong, as part of a worldwide survey of 982 respondents.