IT distributors see slowdown

Distributors of IT equipment are beginning to see a slowdown in sales, a sign of the difficult economic conditions that CIOs and IT professionals are experiencing in their own daily work lives. Arrow, Avnet and Ingram Micro all reported that they did not meet their own expectations or those of analysts and that sluggish sales are the result of a decline in the budgets of IT purchasers.

Arrow and Avnet reported lower-than-expected server sales. Meanwhile, Ingram Micro's CEO said the company was surprised by a flatness in sales at the end of the quarter while Avnet found that its enterprise servers were especially hard-hit. The bottom line: IT departments are holding back on big capital purchases for major projects, although other IT sales so far seem unaffected.

For more on this troubling trend:
- See this Channel Insider article