Nearly 60 percent of CIOs anticipate increasing their software spending through the rest of 2006, while only 33 percent expect spending to remain flat and 2 percent expect a decrease in spending - Result of Merrill Lynch Analysts Survey titled "July '06 Survey of Software Spending Intentions"

Some other interesting results of the survey:

Of those CIOs who were questioned in the survey, many-88 percent-said that issues such as inflation and higher interest rates will not deter future spending on software during the year.

The Merrill Lynch analysts found that 59 percent of CIOs foresaw increasing their spending levels in 2006 from previous spending levels in 2005.

"Only 33 percent of CIO's expect spending to remain flat, down from 42 percent in April,"

Thirty-eight percent of CIOs spend 20 percent or more of their IT budgets on software.

Oracle customers are more comfortable with its Fusion middleware.

Service-oriented architecture is a priority for 80 percent of CIOs, with Microsoft edging out IBM in SOA mindshare.

Of those surveyed, 48 percent of CIOs expected to increase their usage of Linux during the rest of 2006, which was down from 59 percent in April. For those spending money on open source, Red Hat remained the top choice.

Spending on security remained consistent from previous Merrill Lynch surveys.

Analysts calculated a 5 to 6 percent growth in product development, product Lifecycle management spending.

Source: 1

Prashanth Rai