ETR (Enterprise Technology Research)

ICYMI: The Futurum Group has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ETR. Hear directly from our CEO Brad LaScolea and Futurum CEO Daniel Newman on what this means for Futurum, ETR, and the future of technology intelligence.

ETR's first Observatory for CRM puts Salesforce, Microsoft, and ServiceNow in a clear leadership tier. Microsoft leads in product execution, Salesforce in lock-in, and ServiceNow in momentum. HubSpot and Zoho own the speed-to-value lane. Dive into the ETR Observatory for CRM. https://hubs.la/Q04htbBf0

Big news: ETR is joining The Futurum GroupThe Futurum Group. The combined platform pairs ETR's predictive, quantitative signal with the qualitative depth of Futurum's global analyst team across 11 practice areas — giving clients both what's happening in enterprise technology spending, and why. ETR's panel, methodology, and data integrity remain intact. The trust doesn't change. The coverage gets deeper. Read the full announcement: https://hubs.la/Q04h_Z_P0

2026 IT spending growth dropped to 3.6%, a full point below January's 4.6%. The decline appears across enterprise sizes, titles, regions, and verticals. The cost-cutting playbook is rotating too: license audits and vendor consolidation are rising, while staffing reductions fell to a one-year low. Buyers are not freezing spend. They are auditing it. Find where the slowdown hits hardest. https://hubs.la/Q04htk6r0

AI is no longer purely new spend in the enterprise. That's the takeaway from ETR's data through April 2026, which James Uzzalino, ETR's Executive Vice President of Financial Services, presented at Eagle Alpha's AI-mageddon webinar. 61.7% of organizations now fund AI from broader IT budget, up from 56.7% a year ago. This week's newsletter unpacks James's Eagle Alpha data, the Spring 2026 Macro Views slowdown to 3.6%, and the first ETR Observatory for CRM. See where reallocation ends and displacement begins.

ETR's 2026 Observatory for Observability Tools surveyed over 300 technology leaders, revealing a fragmented market with room for many thriving vendors. Microsoft Azure Monitor leads in spending Momentum, while Google Cloud Observability, Datadog, and Dynatrace stand out across NPS, innovation, and integration. Find out who slipped the most this year. https://hubs.la/Q04f_xhP0

For the first time, LLM and GenAI protection has overtaken cloud security as the top enterprise security budget priority. ETR's 2026 State of Security Study shows 59% of leaders plan to increase GenAI spending vs. 54% for cloud security and 45% for detection and response. Cloud security still matters, but its growth is slowing while AI risk reshapes the entire spending narrative. Learn what the study reveals about hyperscaler decisions, agent governance, and why the biggest long-term risk to enterprise AI security may not be technology at all. https://hubs.ly/Q04f_JNs0

AI's share of IT budget is climbing roughly two points per year, and workflow software is already showing the first displacement signals. Last week, ETR EVP of Financial Services James Uzzalino joined Eagle Alpha's webinar, AI-mageddon and Disruption Across the Software Industry, to walk through a market where incumbents are under pressure, new entrants are accelerating faster than ever, and enterprise buyers are rethinking how they evaluate software altogether. ETR's analysis through April 2026, drawing on our Technology Spending Intentions Survey (TSIS), the AI Product Series, and Shared Accounts, makes one thing clear: AI spending has moved past the purely additive phase. Broader IT budget reliance is rising across every cohort, and the first displacement signals are emerging in workflow software. If you missed the live session, the article unpacks the data presented: https://hubs.la/Q04gMCMh0

Salesforce, Microsoft, and ServiceNow are the three dominant players in enterprise CRM, with HubSpot holding ground as a challenger. ServiceNow now leads on spending momentum. But that isn't the most interesting finding. The deeper signal is what AI is doing to vendor selection. Across the technology leaders in the ETR Observatory for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), AI capabilities are reinforcing existing platform positions rather than driving vendor change. Adoption is happening inside incumbents, not at their expense. For buyers evaluating their CRM stack, the takeaway is direct: the platform you commit to today is the AI execution layer you will live with through the next renewal cycle. Before your next renewal, read the ETR Observatory for CRM summary to get topline findings on the leading CRM vendors across spending, satisfaction, lock-in, ROI, and product strength. https://lnkd.in/gCVxNV8K

Enterprises evaluating CCaaS platforms in 2026 aren't waiting for vendors to solve AI. They're layering in Bedrock, Cortex, and other custom solutions to cover what native AI can't. ETR's panel of senior tech leaders unpacks how regulatory fit, cloud alignment, and pricing pressure are quietly redrawing the CCaaS map. Hear why no CCaaS vendor has cracked AI yet. https://hubs.la/Q04f_DlH0