The methods in which personal and home computing have started to merge with the corporate environment will influence the decisions computing firms will choose, according to an industry expert.

Vice-president of large enterprises at SAP David Keene made his comments to the Intellect Annual Regent Conference 2009, where a number of businesses put forward their predictions for IT in the year ahead.

He stated: "The ability to actually see the consumerisation of IT is a little fact we all have to bear in mind in terms of the decisions we'll be processing around buying solutions."

Mr Keene attributed this primarily to the way people use the internet, with the familiarisation with technology causing many people to grow impatient with computer systems which do not satisfy their needs.

Despite the IT industry's continued popularity with consumers, independent research company Forrester Research predicted the amount of money spent on IT goods and services to fall by three per cent in 2009 to £1.16 trillion.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.