Gartner Predicts Worldwide IT Spending to Surpass $3.6 Trillion

There’s good news and bad news. The good news is IT spending worldwide is on the rise. The bad news is it’s not by much, so caution is advised.

According to a prediction by Gartner (News - Alert) Inc., worldwide IT spending is set to reach $3.6 trillion in 2012. This makes is an improved revision from its previous projection last quarter, increasing from 2.5 percent to three percent, signaling stabilization, but still slow growth.

Many Global 500 companies rely upon the global IT spending forecasts by Gartner for key technology decisions. Over 200 Garter business and technology analysts worldwide analyze market segments to make its predictions, resulting in a trusted outlook for the future.

Enterprise spending, meanwhile, is predicted to grow to $109 billion worldwide in 2012, a marked improvement from 2011's $91 billion. Public cloud services are also predicted to reach $207 billion by 2016. While Business process as a service accounts for most of an enterprise's cloud spending, platform, software, and infrastructure as a service continue to grow as well.

As for worldwide IT service spending, that's predicted to reach $864 billion in 2012, up by 2.3 percent from 2011. As consulting becomes more and more technology-based, its demand remains high, while global telecom services continues to be the largest IT spending market.

Gartner’s VP of Research Richard Gordon said, “While the challenges facing global economic growth persist — the eurozone crisis, weaker U.S. recovery, a slowdown in China — the outlook has at least stabilized. There has been little change in either business confidence or consumer sentiment in the past quarter, so the short-term outlook is for continued caution in IT spending."

A more detailed analysis will be presented in the Gartner webinar "Gartner Worldwide IT SPending Forecast, 2Q12 Update," on July 10 at 11 am EDT.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.

Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.