Gartner: IT Spending To Slow, With Cloud Computing An Exception

From ChannelWeb, March 31, 2009...

Overall worldwide IT spending is expected to decline by 3.8 percent in 2009, but certain parts of the market such as cloud services could see explosive growth, according to reports from IT analyst firm Gartner.

Gartner, Stamford, Conn., this week said total worldwide IT spending would reach $3.2 trillion, down about 3.8 percent from the $3.4 trillion spent in 2008.

Of the four key parts of IT spending identified by Gartner, hardware is taking the biggest hit, with total spending expected to fall by 14.9 percent this year to $381 billion.

Spending on telecom is also expected to drop by 2.9 percent to $1.9 trillion, and spending on IT services should drop by 1.7 percent to $809.5 billion, Gartner said.

Only software spending will rise, but by a mere 0.3 percent to $221.9 billion. However, that estimate could be revised to negative growth if the economic downturn continues, Gartner said. The analyst firm expects no upturn in software sales until the first half of 2010.

Read more...