IT spending to grow 1.1 percent

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.79 trillion in 2019, an increase of 1.1 per cent from 2018, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc.

“Currency headwinds fuelled by the strengthening US dollar have caused us to revise our 2019 IT spending forecast down from the previous quarter,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. “Through the remainder of 2019, the US dollar is expected to trend stronger, while enduring tremendous volatility due to uncertain economic and political environments and trade wars.

 

“In 2019, technology product managers will have to get more strategic around their portfolio mix by balancing products and services that will post growth in 2019 with those larger markets that will trend flat to down,” said Mr Lovelock. “Successful product managers in 2020 will have had a long-term view to the changes made in 2019.”

 

The data centre systems segment will experience the largest decline in 2019 with a decrease of 2.8 per cent. This is mainly due to expected lower average selling prices (ASPs) in the server market driven by adjustments in the pattern of expected component costs.

 

The shift of enterprise IT spending from traditional (noncloud) offerings to new, cloud-based alternatives is continuing to drive growth in the enterprise software market. In 2019, the market is forecast to reach $427 billion, up 7.1 per cent from $399 billion in 2018. The largest cloud shift has so far occurred in application software. However, Gartner expects increased growth for the infrastructure software segment in the near-term, particularly in integration platform as a service (iPaaS) and application platform as a service (aPaaS).

 

“The choices CIOs make about technology investments are essential to the success of digital business. Disruptive emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), will reshape business models as well as the economics of public- and private-sector enterprises. AI is having a major effect on IT spending, although its role is often misunderstood,” said Mr Lovelock. “AI is not a product, it is really a set of techniques or a computer engineering discipline. As such, AI is being embedded in many existing products and services, as well as being central to new development efforts in every industry. Gartner’s AI business value forecast predicts that organisations will receive $1.9 trillion worth of benefit from the use of AI this year alone.”

Explore the pressing issues faced by IT teams as highlighted in JumpCloud's latest report.
BlueSnap partners with Commerce to enhance BigCommerce B2B Edition with integrated ERP and AR...
m3ter enhances AWS Marketplace support, allowing ISVs to deploy complex pricing models with ease,...
Capacity Europe 2025 returns to London, uniting global digital infrastructure leaders to forge...
Local councils, charities to receive £9.5 million to combat digital exclusion and boost online...
Sage enhances their finance tech with AI-powered automation and sustainability features to...
Archive360 teams up with Neev Data to offer a unified, AI-driven data archiving solution for...
New research highlights the need for diversified mobile app advertising, urging marketers to look...