International BusinessIT industry to return to growth in'10
The IT industry is exiting its worst year ever as global IT spending is all set to decline 5.2 per cent, according to Gartner, Inc, an information technology research and advisory company. However, the IT industry will return to growth in 2010 with IT spending forecast to total $3.3 trillion, a 3.3 per cent increase from 2009.
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In Asia Pacific, IT spending is expected to grow by 5 per cent to reach $515.6 billion in 2010.
“Emerging regions will resume strong growth,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of research. “By 2012, the accelerated IT spending and culturally different approach to IT in Asia will directly influence product features, service structures and the overall IT industry. Silicon Valley will not be in the driver’s seat anymore.”
However, growth could vary considerably by country, vertical market and IT sector. Sondergaard said that while software would post the strongest growth in Asia Pacific, telecommunications still represented the largest area of IT investment.
While IT spending will increase next year, Gartner cautioned IT leaders against being overly optimistic.
“The IT industry will return to growth in 2010, the market will not recover to 2008 revenue levels before 2012,” said Sondergaard. “2010 is about balancing focus on cost, risk, and growth. For over 50 per cent of CIOs, the IT budget will grow 0 per cent or less. It will only slowly improve in 2011.”
Sondergaard said the most-searched terms by Gartner clients on gartner.com provide some clues to the priorities of IT leaders around the world. Cost remained the most-searched term during 2009, although it peaked in May, followed by cloud computing.
“Next year will be the year when cloud computing moves from the discovery phase to small pilots as part of organisations’ desire to move from owned to shared IT,” he said.
Sondergaard said three additional topics that were important in 2009 will continue to dominate IT leaders’ agendas in 2010.
The three topics are business intelligence, virtualisation and social media.