Gartner: Still No Economic Recovery for IT Spending, Sales

Gartner is now forecasting a 6 percent decline in IT spending for 2009,
representing a more significant decline than the market research firm’s
previous forecast of a 3.8 percent decline.

Gartner says that all four major segments of IT spending will experience
declines—hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications.

"While the global economic downturn shows signs of easing, this year IT
budgets are still being cut and consumers will need a lot more persuading
before they can feel confident enough to loosen their purse strings," says
Richard Gordon, research vice president and head of global forecasting at
Gartner, in a prepared statement.

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Gordon goes on to say that Gartner’s revised
forecast represents only minor downward revisions, noting that the forecasted
decline in spending growth for hardware and software this year has almost
stabilized.

"However, the full impact of the global recession on the IT services and
telecommunications sectors is still emerging, and forecast growth in these
areas has been further reduced significantly,” Gordon says. “Moreover, the rise
in the value of the U.S. dollar against most currencies in recent months will
have a material downward impact on 2009 IT spending growth."

Gartner says the computing hardware segment will show the steepest decline in
2009, with spending to fall by 16.3 percent. Software will fare the best, with
a decrease in spending of only 1.6 percent.

IT services sales will fall by 5.6 percent and telecom will fall by 4.6
percent, according to Gartner.

Forrester
also recently revised its forecast for total global sales of IT
products and services downward, projecting a decline of 10.6 percent for 2009,
compared with a previous forecast of just 3 percent.