Many companies are looking to cut costs in the recession, though this strategy could result in many of them facing tough decisions in the future, according to a leading British technology organisation.

Mike Dean, speaking on behalf of the National Computing Centre, explained that a number of businesses are delaying planned expenditures but this may strangle their safety or hurt income should it be a service which helps deliver increased revenue or protect systems, such as disaster recovery.

One such business to have announced this is BA, Mr Dean continued, noting that many may consider a move to cloud computing to cut down on extra costs.

He added: "We forecast that hardware vendors will suffer the most, but IT service and software providers will pick up the slack as more companies and public sector organisations outsource.

"Predicted demand for Windows 7 is strong."

According to a Gartner study earlier this month, organisations are continuing to drive down their total IT budgets in 2009 from 2008 figures, yet 2010 worldwide software budgets will likely increase.

A recent survey for Connect found that one in ten companies has lost important data as a result of a backup failure. The company has now developed a unique online backup service for SMEs to ensure they can survive any disaster.