More Money Will Go Into IT this Year

Each year, a substantial sum of money is invested into various IT installations, machines and businesses, and Gartner decided to study just how big a rise in expenses is expected for the ongoing year.

Gartner is an analyst firm that conducted many studies of the years, so it is not surprising to hear that it has taken a look at how finances will be handled on the IT market this year.

Back in the first quarter, it was projected that IT spending would rise by 5.6% compared to 2010, but new data has changed the outlook.

Now, instead of that percentage, the sum is set to increase by 7.1%, mostly owed to the fact that the migration to public cloud services has accelerated. The $3,427 billions of 2010 will turn into $3,672 billion.

"The emergence and adoption of cloud is an important trend, and in some markets, it's already a significant factor," said Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner.

"For example, at about $10 billion, software as a service (SaaS) already accounts for 10 percent of enterprise applications software spending, and by 2015 this share is expected to increase to close to 15 percent and to exceed $20 billion in annual spending."

Public cloud spending is going to grow four times as fast as the overall IT industry, going from last year's $74 million to $89 million. The trend will go on until the sum becomes $177 (2015).

In total IT spendings percentages, this would imply a jump from the 2% of last year to under 5%.

"It is a bit surprising that we have not seen a more significant impact on our 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," said Richard Gordon.

"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."