Research firm Gartner have projected a 2.1% growth in global IT spending, equating to $3.7 trillion, compared to an almost flat growth last year. This is marked decrease from their last projections; in April, they predicted 3.2% growth and a $3.8 trillion market by the end of 2014.
Gartner analyst John Lovelock attributes the lower estimates to a lack of diversification between products increasing competition and driving down prices. “Things are starting to become commoditized faster than we expected,” he said.
A breakdown of individual sectors in the Gartner report shows a marked shift away from traditional data warehouses and towards cloud computing. Although cloud computing constitutes a relatively small market share now, the performance and scalability of emerging cloud technologies has led many to predict a sharp increase in their market share. The IT services sector, which incorporates cloud computing, is set to grow 3.8% to $967 billion in 2014 according to the report, compared to zero growth last year. Enterprise software is also expected to see a distinct rise in market share, with a 6.9% increase to $321 billion estimated.
As IT services and cloud solutions accelerate, the data centre market is slowing down. Gartner projects a measly 0.4% growth to $140 billion this year. “On-premises data centers are in trouble, and hyperscale is where the interest and the growth are,” Lovelock concurred.
If the projections are correct, they’ll corroborate the general assumptions of many that new database technologies and cloud solutions will prove to be a viable and competitive alternative to data centres- and perhaps even overtake them.
Read more here.
(Image credit: Flickr)
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