Security is no longer the prime concern of many IT managers, with trends shifting towards upgrading networks and consolidating servers instead, a study has shown.

Research by Goldman Sachs highlights that the technologies in which chief information officers (CIOs) are choosing to invest their budgets have changed.

More than 40 per cent of respondents said they would prioritise consolidation over the coming year, while just under 40 per cent planned to focus on virtualisation.

'The big move upward coincides with an increasing number of comments from CIOs about the deployment of virtualisation in production and test environments and the recent dislocation between industry-standard server unit and revenue growth,' the report reads.

Goldman Sachs attributed the decline in spending on security to buyers being more confident and products becoming more mature.

Recently, the Annual Security Report 2007 from NTA Monitor stated that British firms were becoming increasingly savvy about security, with only 32 per cent of companies having exploitable critical vulnerabilities compared with 61 per cent in the previous year.

Quoting BCS news here.