As part of its annual TeleTech survey, Dublin-based research company iReach questioned 250 Irish executives in charge of technology and telecommunications at their respective companies about their anticipated spending patterns over the next 12 months.

According to the results, Irish companies expect to spend Euro1.42bn on computer hardware in 2007, a 9% increase on the spend last year. Ireach is predicting the biggest spending spree by Irish companies on technology since the turn of the millennium.

In the lead-up to 2000, many companies spent heavily on upgrading their computer systems to protect them from the so-called Y2K bug, which technology experts predicted would cause chaos because older systems would not be able to update properly when their internal clocks changed over from the year 1999 to 2000.

Spending in Ireland is now heading back towards those pre-year 2000 levels, according to iReach analyst Sinéad Daly.

"Revenue growth in 2006 was only 3%, so 2007 represents one of the best years for hardware growth since the late 1990s, " Daly said.

Research from iReach suggests that Irish companies spend a higher proportion of their overall budgets on computer hardware than companies in any other country in Europe.

"This will increase in 2007, " Daly added.

Almost half of those surveyed said their companies would be increasing their spending on technology this year.

Daly said much of the spending growth will be driven by purchases of new laptops. Irish companies are increasingly replacing desktop computers with laptops, as well as investing in mobile devices and applications that enable employees to do more of their work while on the move.