Amid Tech's Bleating, SAP's Got Bark

Despite the ravages of a tough economy, tech companies that sell software for controlling different business functions and managing IT systems are among the best-positioned for 2009.

These are the results of a recent UBS survey of 100 chief information officers (CIOs) in the U.S. and Europe, which painted an otherwise depressing picture of the state of IT spending. CIOs are predicting a 2% decline in IT spending in 2009, according to UBS, even lower than recent downbeat estimates from tech analyst firms Forrester and Gartner.

Software maker SAP(SAP Quote), however, is bucking the downward trend for IT spending, according to UBS, which found that the firm provoked a much more positive response from CIOs than rivals Microsoft(MSFT Quote), Oracle(ORCL Quote) and IBM (IBM Quote).

Of those four firms, SAP alone was expected to register a net spending increase in 2009, with CIOs foreseeing net decreases in their spending on Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM technology. The German software company, which sells Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) products for controlling business processes such as purchasing and customer service, also sells online software for large businesses.

UBS found that firms in the manufacturing sector, in particular, expect to spend money on ERP next year, with SAP and even its rivals potentially reaping the benefits. SAP's stock is currently trading around $33, well below its 52-week high of $59.42.

Despite the expected decline in IT budgets, UBS found that systems management will also prove relatively popular in 2009, with respondents expecting to increase their spending by 1%. Within this sector, software that automates data center tasks, such as server management, will rise 2% as users try to lower their personnel costs.

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