Though signals continue to be very, very mixed, another piece of research group forecasting suggests the modest recovery in the global ICT market we saw last year is continuing to gather strength.

Thus PAC (Pierre Audoin Consultants) says following that brutal 2009, 2010 saw an average 4% rise in the global IT software market (to €203bn) and a 1.5% rise in services (to €502bn).

Interestingly, that’s mostly a lot of new licences being sold, in the heartland enterprise IT markets of systems infrastructure software, tools and applications software products.

Services, it seems, are not really back alive yet, though hardware maintenance and project services remained more or less flat, outsourcing did pick up well, by 3.5%.

Yet again, however, Western Europe is the bottom of the pile, and yes, the UK is still not a great place to do business. All in the entire region only saw a 1.5% growth in software and a 0.5% contraction in services; Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK "were still contracting," says the firm.

If you’re a vendor, you want, it would seem, to be concentrating more on Middle East and Africa (over 7% for both software and services), Latin America (6% and 5%) and Asia-Pacific (6% and 3%), even at the expense of the biggest market, North America, as this didn’t rise as much (4.5% for software, 1.5% for services).

Even Eastern Europe, by the way, the worst hit region in 2009, did better than we did, with growth of 4% and 3%. Western Europe produced the worst results, while (no surprise?) India had a massive 15% growth in software and 14% in services and China (15% and 11%), Brazil (the most mature of the "BRICs") enjoyed good numbers, too, a 6% growth in both software and services and Russia has also picked up well after a tough 2009.

OK – what next? PAC says we can all expect "a consolidation of the recovery" in 2011, with a slight acceleration in software spending (5.5% growth in local currency) and "a more noticeable bounce" in IT services spending (4% expected in 2011 against 1.5% in 2010).

But in terms of regional imbalances, look for the Middle East and Africa to lead the way with 10% growth for software and 9% for services, followed by Latin America (8% in both segments), Eastern Europe (7% in both segments), Asia (7%, 5%), North America (5.5%, 4%) and right at the tail end again, Western Europe, with a mere 3.5% in software and 2.5% in services.

What’s going on here? We all know that the UK and Western European economies are mature markets, still struggling with the effects of the recession. But the research says it’s more complicated than that analysis would suggest.

A substantial part of the current investment focus, it says, is aimed at decreasing the total cost of IT operation in the medium term, taking advantage of the new cloud delivery models which is leading most traditional IT-suppliers, consultancies, systems integrators, outsourcers, software vendors, hardware manufacturers and VARs to "reconsider their business models".

Meanwhile, the growing maturity of the market is making the IT supplier community increasingly concentrated, with vendors accelerating their M&A activity to achieve greater scale, geographical expansion, portfolio diversification and build new business models.

At the same time, there’s still enormous demand for ICT and its application in commerce and society alike, it argues: "Technology drivers such as virtualisation, cloud, SOA and mobility often being deployed in combination. Integration, networking, flexibility, cost efficiency, ubiquity and process orientation are key criteria in most transformation projects…. There are several other process areas and technology areas generating substantial dedicated investment. For example: embedded systems, the ‘internet of things’, collaboration, CRM, information management, social networks, compliance and sustainability. And not forgetting industry-specific topics like PLM, multichannel integration, post merger integration, e-government, e-health, tele-health, and smart grid or smart metering," it says, with a note of optimism.

Let’s boil this down.

One, CIOs want to spend money on things that will help their firms innovate and grow business. But they will only do so at the cost of spending less on commodity/keeping the lights on stuff. That’s the dynamic that’s coming to dominate the industry and market we all work in – and the question going forward for suppliers and customers alike is where you stand on that seesaw at any one time.

The grim news seems to be that if you’re in the UK market – firmly with both feet holding down the cost reduction end. For how much longer, we wonder?