IT spending 2010: clawing our way back to 2008 (by 2012)
November 19th, 2009 by Hugh Kennedy
Gartner Group has released its annual prognostications about who will be spending what on information technology next year. Here’s what I found interesting:
* Sustained IT spending growth won’t be back until 2012 or 2013. By that time we’ll have decided what to call the decade that ends in 41 days. One bright note is that healthcare IT spending will continue to rise. As it should (as you’ve probably noticed, way too much healthcare information is still being taken down in paper form).
* 2010 is the new 2008: most spending levels will crawl back to pre-Great Recession levels next year, but won’t go much further than that. For manufacturing and financial services it looks worse.
* ROI and proof of concept will be under the microscope like never before for vendors, and as virtualization really takes hold some of that hardware spending will never come back. Even IT services are slated to rise only 4.5%. From our perspective, that means that marketing has got to hold itself to the standard of solving business problems.
* Purchases across the board are likely to become smaller and more strategic, the retail equivalent of the way Hermes sales rose after 9/11 because people wanted that one, perfect killer app of an item.
And a real wow moment: hardware spending was down more than 16% in 2009. That’s the IT equivalent of half the US population making holiday gifts at home out of Popsicle sticks and glitter.
So here, too, like everywhere in our terrestrial world, a New Reality takes hold. Not a bad name for the decade right around the bend.
