Technology

Gartner Study: Technology Spending Is (Finally) Coming Back

With device sales and enterprise software leading the way, information technology spending is expected to jump by 3.2 percent, new Gartner projections show.

We’ve seen a lot of growth in tech innovation in recent years, and it looks like 2014 is the year many IT departments are going to start spending on some of it.

So says a new Gartner forecast, which projects that worldwide IT spending is likely to top $3.8 trillion in 2014, jumping 3.2 percent from last year.

But the nature of the spending is going to be different. For one thing, so many people have smartphones now as to render the term useless, as The New York Times notes. And most of the devices organizations will be buying, by the way, aren’t iPhones.

“There will be more Android devices sold in 2014 than all of the iOS devices sold ever,” John Lovelock, Gartner’s vice president of research, told the Times. “Predominantly phones. People everywhere are saying, ‘This is affordable to me.’”

Among the sectors seeing the biggest potential in 2014 are enterprise software (projected to grow 6.9 percent, up from 4.9 percent growth in 2013), IT services (4.6 percent growth, up from 1.8 percent in 2013), and devices (4.4 percent growth, up from a decline of 1.4 percent in 2013).

One place that isn’t growing is the PC market, which Gartner describes as “contracting to a set of fewer, albeit more engaged, users,” with smaller ultra-mobile notebooks winning out over larger models, and tablets being used as secondary devices.

In comments to Infoworld, Lovelock said PC users are buying devices less frequently, and when they do, they tend to buy “the next form factor down,” looking for portability.

“Globally, businesses are shaking off their malaise and returning to spending on IT to support the growth of their business,” Richard Gordon, Gartner’s managing vice president, said in a news release. “Consumers will be purchasing many new devices in 2014; however, there is a greater substitution toward lower cost and more basic devices than we have seen in prior years.”

Do these results match your own plans? Let us know your take in the comments.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

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