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By Michael Eggebrecht

The technology spending downturn is over, if a new report from Forrester is correct. After falling 8.9 percent last year, global IT spending will rise 8.8 percent in 2010, to about $1.6 trillion, predicts the research firm.

“All the pieces are in place for a 2010 tech spending rebound,” says Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels. “In the U.S., the tech recovery will be much stronger than the overall economic recovery, with technology spending growing at more than twice the rate of gross domestic product this year.”

But U.S. tech spending won’t be picking up as quickly as overall worldwide spending, according to the report, which pegs U.S. growth at 6.6 percent in 2010 -- to $568 billion. In 2009, U.S. IT spending fell 8.2 percent.

Growing more quickly -- when measured in U.S. dollars -- will be spending in Western and Central Europe (11.2 percent), Canada (9.9 percent), Asia-Pacific (7.8 percent) and Latin America (7.7 percent). But the U.S. isn’t at the bottom: IT spending in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa will climb 2.4 percent, estimates Forrester.

So where will all the money go? The software and hardware markets will be the biggest recipients, says the report. Global software spending will rise 9.7 percent in 2010, followed by computer equipment (8.2 percent), communications equipment (7.6 percent), IT outsourcing (7.1 percent) and consulting and systems integration (6.8 percent).

Bartels is calling 2010 the start of the “next phase of technology advancement,” a cycle that Forrester is calling "smart computing" and expects to last six to seven years. “New technologies of awareness married to advanced business intelligence analytics make computing smart,” he says. “Smart computing rests on new foundation technologies such as service-oriented architecture, server and storage virtualization, cloud computing, and unified communications.”

Last month, research firm IDC said that global IT spending would increase 3.2 percent this year, to $1.5 trillion, about where it was in 2008.

Comments (1)

	1. 01-12-2010 22:34
	Perhaps the most promising part of this forecast is the prediction that this next new phase of technology advancement could last "six to seven years." The technology industry could certainly do with a period of stability after suffering through two major disruptions in 2001-2002 and now 2008-2009. Registered

Mel Duvall

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