[October 17, 2011]

Gartner Says Worldwide Enterprise IT Spending to Reach $2.7 Trillion in 2012

Worldwide enterprise IT spending is projected to total $2.7 trillion in 2012, a 3.9 percent increase from 2011 spending of $2.6 trillion, according to Gartner (News - Alert), Inc. While enterprise IT spending growth is slowing (from the expected 5.9 percent increase in 2011), analysts said it's important to note that despite the global economic challenges, enterprises will continue to invest in IT.

Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research, provided the latest outlook for the IT industry today to an audience of 8,500 CIOs and IT leaders at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here through October 20.

"The days when IT was the passive observer of the world are over. Global politics and the global economy are being shaped by IT," Mr. Sondergaard said. "IT is a primary driver of business growth. For example, this year 350 companies will each invest more than $1 billion in IT. They are doing this because IT impacts their business performance."

Mr. Sondergaard said two-thirds of CEOs believe IT will make a greater contribution to their industry in the next 10 years than any prior decades.

"For the IT leader to thrive in this environment, IT leaders must lead from the front and re-imagine IT," Mr. Sondergaard said. "IT leaders must embrace the post-modern business, a business driven by customer relationships, fueled by the explosion in information, collaboration, and mobility."

This new era brings with it urgent and compelling forces. They include: the cloud, social, mobility, and an explosion in information.

"These forces are innovative and disruptive just taken on their own, but brought together, they are revolutionizing business and society," Mr. Sondergaard said. "This nexus defines the next age of computing. To understand this change, you must appreciate each of the forces."

The Cloud. The cloud combines the industrialization of IT capabilities and the disruptive impact of new IT-led business models. However, the shift away from traditional IT acquisition models to public cloud services is still in the very early stages. For example, Gartner estimates that while $74 billion was spent on public cloud services in 2010, that only represented 3 percent of enterprise spending. But, public cloud services will grow five times faster than overall IT enterprise spending (19 percent annually through 2015).

"What supply chain models did to manufacturing is what cloud computing is doing to in-house data centers. It is allowing people to optimize around where they have differentiated capabilities," Mr. Sondergaard said.

Social. The next stage of social computing is about mass-customer, mass-citizen, and mass-employee involvement with enterprise systems.

"With 1.2 billion people on social networks, 20 percent of the world's population, social computing is in its next phase," Mr. Sondergaard said. "IT leaders must immediately incorporate social software capabilities throughout their enterprise systems."

Information. The concept of one enterprise data warehouse containing all information needed for decisions is dead. Multiple systems, including content management, data warehouses, data marts and specialized file systems tied together with data services and metadata, will become the "logical" enterprise data warehouse.

"Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine," Mr.Sondergaard said. "Pursuing this strategically will create an unprecedented amount of information of enormous variety and complexity. This is leading to a change in data management strategies known as big data. This creates what we call a Pattern-Based Strategy architecture. An architecture that seeks signals, models them for their impact, and then adapt to the business process of the organization.

Mobile. The shift to mobile is almost overtaking many IT organizations who can't move fast enough to catch up. Mobile is not a coming trend. It has already happened. In 2010, the installed base of mobile PCs and smartphones exceeded that of desktop PCs.

Less than 20 million media tablets, such as the iPad, were sold in 2010, but by 2016, 900 million media tablets will be purchased - one for every eight people on earth. By 2014, the installed base of devices based on lightweight mobile operating systems, such as Apple's iOS, Google's Android (News - Alert), and Microsoft's Windows 8 will exceed the total installed base of all PC-based systems.

"That's incredible change, not only for individuals. It requires IT to re-imagine the way it provides applications," Mr. Sondergaard said. "By 2014, private app stores will be deployed by 60 percent of IT organizations. The applications themselves will be redesigned - they will become context-enabled, understanding the user's intent automatically. Mobile computing is not just the desktop on a handheld device. The future of mobile computing is context-aware computing."

Cloud, social, information and mobile, combined the new nexus. Where data centers will give way to data clouds, mobile devices become windows into personal clouds. Personal computing will become massive collaborative computing, and information technologies will be overshadowed by information ecologies.

"The impact of these forces will make architectures of the last 20 years obsolete," Mr. Sondergaard said. "Together, they force the issue - they drive us to create the post-modern business, drive simplicity and force creative destruction."

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world's most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and objective content with the authority and weight of the world's leading IT research and advisory organization, and provides access to the latest solutions from key technology providers. Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees' annual planning efforts. IT executives rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency.

More exclusive content, expanding multi-media coverage, including Twitter (News - Alert) feeds and comments from the Gartner Blog Network are available Gartner's SymLive at www.gartner.com/us/symposium.

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Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo include:
October 25-27, Sao Paulo, Brazil: www.gartner.com/br/symposium
November 7-10, Barcelona, Spain: www.gartner.com/eu/symposium
November 14-17, Gold Coast, Australia: www.gartner.com/au/symposium
November 21-23, Mumbai, India: www.gartner.com/in/symposium

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is a valuable partner to 60,000 clients in 11,500 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,500 associates, including 1,250 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.

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