Business 2.0 reports

The average enterprise IT budget has finally bottomed out and is actually going up--an increase of 3.7 percent is expected in the next 6 to 12 months, according to tech research firm Aberdeen Group. That's certainly more modest than the 10 to 15 percent growth rates of the 1990s, but it beats the declining IT budgets of the past year or two. Of those surveyed, 72 percent plan to purchase network and systems management applications; 60 percent plan to purchase security gateways and services; and 52 percent are shopping for storage management solutions.