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Worldwide spending on IT is on track to surpass $3.6 trillion this year, up 3 percent from the $3.5 trillion spent on IT in 2011 and an indication that economic turmoil around the globe is having a limited effect, according to a report from IT research firm Gartner. The company said it expects enterprise spending on public cloud services to grow from $91 billion worldwide in 2011 to $109 billion in 2012. Enterprise public cloud services spending will reach $207 billion by 2016, according to the report.
“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,” Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner, said in prepared remarks. “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. “Business process as a service (BPaaS) still accounts for the vast majority of cloud spending by enterprises, but other areas such as platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) are growing faster.”
Computer hardware spending in 2012 is expected to reach $420 billion, a 3.4 percent rise over 2011, and growth in the sector is expected to hit 6.6 percent by 2013, with worldwide computer hardware spending hitting $448 billion, according to Gartner research. Companies are on track to spend $281 billion on enterprise software this year, a 4.3 percent increase in spending compared with 2011. In 2013, enterprise software spending will reach $301 billion, representing a 6.9 percent rise compared with 2012.
IT services spending is forecast to reach $864 billion in 2012, a 2.3 percent increase from 2011, driven by demand for consulting services as businesses grapple with ever-more complex IT infrastructure. Gartner research also indicated the global telecom services market continues to be the largest IT spending market, with growth expected to come not only from net connectionsparticularly in emerging markets– but also in mature markets from the uptake of multiple connected devices, such as media tablets, gaming and other consumer electronics devices.
Telecom equipment spending is expected to hit $377 billion in 2012, a 10.8 percent jump from 2011, where total telecom equipment spending was $340 billion. Telecom services spending is projected to hit $1.6 trillion, up just 1.4 percent, and will rise another 2.3 percent in 2013 to reach $1.7 trillion. Overall, total spending on IT will rise another 4.4 percent in 2013 to hit $3.7 trillion.