Worldwide IT spending is set to grow 7.1% in 2011, up from 5.6% growth projected for the year by Gartner in their first quarter update.
According to the latest quarterly spending outlook by Gartner, Global IT services is forecast to reach $846bn in 2011, a 6.6% increase from 2010, while the computing and hardware segment is poised for the strongest growth with 11.7% growth in 2011.
Gartner research vice president Richard Gordon said it is a bit surprising that they have not seen a more significant impact on their global IT spending forecast as a results of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, but despite widespread concerns about disruptions to the supply of critical components in the initial aftermath of the natural disaster, there has not been a dramatic impact on overall IT spending
"For 2011 as a whole, we expect Japan IT spending to be down in local currency, but we expect a positive growth trend to emerge in the second half of the year and continue into 2012," Gordon said.
Spending in worldwide public cloud services is projected to grow four times faster than spending on overall IT, with Gartner forecasting it to reach $89bn in 2011, up from $74bn in 2010, while the market is forecast to reach $177bn by 2015.
The level of spending on public cloud services will be less than 5% of the total spent on IT overall by 2015, which will be 3% more than the global IT spending in 2010.
"Nevertheless, the emergence and adoption of cloud is an important trend, and in some markets, it’s already a significant factor," Gordon said.
"For example, at about $10bn, software as a service (SaaS) already accounts for 10% of enterprise applications software spending, and by 2015 this share is expected to increase to close to 15% and to exceed $20bn in annual spending."
