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Worldwide IT Spending to Surpass $3 Trillion in 2007
2007 is on pace to be a milestone year for the IT industry,
as worldwide IT spending is projected to surpass $3 trillion, according to Gartner,
Inc. IT spending in 2007 will reach $3.1 trillion in 2007, an eight percent
increase from last year, and spending for 2008 is forecast grow 5.5 percent
and total $3.3 trillion.
During the opening keynote at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, Gartner outlined
how IT leaders must be able to respond to change quicker than ever before. There
is a need for flexibility, and a need for agility.
Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research at Gartner,
said IT leaders should create two IT budgets for 2008. The first should reflect
the same kind of marginal growth prepared during the past six years. The second
budget should assume the need to cut costs in response to the arrival of a possible
recession.
“The business plans that you had in June are probably not going to completely
address the changed conditions of your business in November,” Sondergaard
told an audience of 6,000 IT decision makers. “Together with your business
colleagues and your CEO you are going to have to deliver new efficiencies, new
innovations and new ideas to sustain profitability and growth. IT will be core
to many of those responses.”
The challenge for IT leaders is how they are going to react.
“Simply delivering internally focused savings isn’t going to be enough,”
Sondergaard said. “You (IT leaders) need to step up to the challenge of
delivering new solutions to those critical business imperatives.”
On a worldwide basis, IT spending continues to grow at a rapid pace in developing
countries. In fact, one-third of IT spending now occurs outside of North America,
Western Europe, and Japan. This development will create new innovation in IT,
new competitors, new usage patterns, and continued cost improvement benefits
for users,” Sondergaard said.
As IT moves East and South, it will mostly affect the growing areas of the industry.
End-user spending will globally move towards software, services, and all aspects
of mobility. These categories made up 57 percent of spending in 2006, will become
60 percent in 2008, and are forecast to have grown to 63 percent in 2011.
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