Research from Goldman Sachs expects IT spending to start moving upwards in 2010, but a survey of British small firms finds many still worried about the impact of recession on their businesses.

The survey from Amplify Research found a quarter of firms expect to be hit harder during the later stages of the downturn. A quarter reckoned that the first quarter of 2009 was their worst trading period but almost a third - 31 per cent - reported no fall in orders. 19 per cent of SMBs said sales had fallen over 20 per cent.

But looking forward, 38 per cent of small and medium enterprises believe revenue falls will slow in the next six months and just over a quarter expect the downward trend to end completely by year end.

The Amplify press release is here.

In other news, a research note from Goldman Sachs looking at consulting and outsourcing predicts "modest improvements in IT spending... into 2010". Researchers looked specifically at Accenture: Goldman predicts fourth quarter sales of $5.12bn for the firm, which reports on 1 October. ®

Related stories

• Gartner: IT spending growth next year (19 October 2009)
• Small biz battered by late payments (29 September 2009)
• HP: We will grow faster than IT (25 September 2009)
• HP bundles up services for data centres (21 September 2009)
• Cisco pumps up small business line (16 September 2009)
• O2 gets into fixed line with BT (16 September 2009)
• Netbook sales set to soar - or not (15 September 2009)
• Dell shoots low for SMBs (9 September 2009)
• Byrne's naked shorting crusade outs Yahoo! security vuln (8 September 2009)
• White papers A day in the life of an email manager (8 September 2009)