Gartner Inc warns that there is no near-term prospect of a rebound in IT investment in Europe, contradicting an earlier prediction of its Dataquest statistical market research unit.

The Gartner survey of over 400 European companies revealed that almost 70% will either lower IT spending this year, or freeze it at 2001 levels. Nearly 75% said they would also either lower or keep flat IT spending next year.

The findings are a blow to Europe's IT sector, which had begun to hope that the post-September 11 spending slowdown in the US might fail to bite in Europe.

Gartner's Dataquest unit had helped fuel this apparently false optimism, having earlier predicted a 7% increase in business technology spending in Europe this year, and an 8.7% increase in 2003.

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