It is claimed that worldwide IT spending is set to reach $3.8 trillion in 2014, a 3.6% increase from 2013, according to Gartner, Inc. at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando.
Senior vice president at Gartner and global head of research, Peter Sondergaard, explained to an audience of more than 8,000 CIOs and IT leaders that due to the rise of the importance of technology and digital services, we are now in the ‘Digital Industrial Economy’:
"The Digital Industrial Economy will be built on the foundations of the Nexus of Forces (which includes a confluence and integration of cloud, social collaboration, mobile and information) and the Internet of Everything by combining the physical world and the virtual.
"Digitalisation exposes every part of your business and its operations to these forces. It is how you reach customers and constituents; how you run your physical plant; and how you generate revenue or deliver services. Organisations doing this today are setting themselves apart and will collectively lead the new Digital Industrial Economy".
It was reported that in 2009, there were approximately 2.5 billion connected devices with unique IP addresses to the internet; many of these were mobile devices. In 2020, it is estimated that there will be up to 30 billion devices connected with unique IP addresses. Gartner predicts that by 2017, nearly half of first-time computer purchases will be a tablet.
Gartner has predicted that the total economic value add for the Internet of Things will be $1.9 trillion dollars in 2020, benefiting a wide range of industries, such as, healthcare, retail, and transportation.
"Digital changes the IT market in a big way through the Internet of Things," said Sondergaard. "In the technology and telecom sectors, revenue associated with the Internet of Things will exceed $309 billion per year by 2020."
