Despite reports that IT spending is set to slow in the coming months, industry watchers expect to see investment in management software grow.

IT spending forecasts have been pretty gloomy of late, what with talk of a U.S. economic recession. But IT industry research firm AMR Research expects to see spending on IT management software increase by more than 9% -- above the average expected growth in IT spending -- in 2008 over the previous year. According to a report authored by AMR analysts Dennis Gaughan and Jennifer Hackbush, "2008 IT management software spending will increase 9.3% over 2007, slightly higher than overall IT spending, with a specific focus on addressing security and ITIL process improvements."

The AMR study didn't focus on the overall IT budget, but on the portion of the IT budget devoted to software, hardware and services for IT governance, management, operations and development -- generally the services and systems that support IT operations and infrastructure. AMR polled 405 total respondents, who report that the average spend on IT for IT at $1.8 million for 2008. Sixty-four percent of those polled expect that spending in 2008 to increase over 2007 and 28% expect to keep spending flat for the year.

"Based on the survey, respondents spend roughly one-third of their IT budget on IT for IT," the report reads. "IT buyers are increasingly looking for tools to help manage the business of running the IT organization."

According to an AMR study, enterprise IT buyers will be focused on improving security and compliance while also reducing IT operational costs. And as part of that, security will become more central to IT management vendors' strategy with customers. And ITIL adoption efforts will evolve to the point that enterprise IT managers can augment the best practices with automation tools.

"All the effort invested in ITIL process transformation will translate into software revenue in 2008 as companies look to automate key processes, including change and configuration management," AMR reports.

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.