UK to lead Europe out of recession

Oracle is expecting the recovery to kick in at some point in 2010

The head of Oracle in EMEA has said that he sees the UK leading Europe out of the recession when it comes to IT spending.

Loïc le Guisquet said at the Oracle OpenWorld 2009 conference in San Francisco that the company is expecting the recovery to kick in at some point in 2010, and that the UK would be at forefront.

"The UK is doing very well as far as we are concerned," he said. "It is adopting new technologies quickly and recognising that they will be a key success factor in future work."

Le Guisquet explained that according to the best data from analysts and the FT eastern Europe had suffered most badly from the depression, along with western European countries like Austria.

Ireland and Iceland were also singled out as having experienced difficulties, while Poland was doing surprisingly well.

When he came to businesses that were prospering, Le Guisquet was more specific.

"The telecoms industry is doing well, and government business is going OK too," he said. "Surprisingly the financial sector is not that bad. We were very surprised by that, but they are sitting on a pile of legacy systems."