IT spending to reach $3.8trn in 2019 amid shift towards cloud, says Gartner

Worldwide IT spending is forecast to reach $3.76trn in 2019, up 3.2% from 2018, according to new research from Gartner Inc.

In its latest report, Gartner highlighted that the rising investment comes as corporate IT budgets continue to shift towards cloud and away from on-premise data centres

“Spending is moving from saturated segments such as mobile phones, PCs and on-premises data centre infrastructure to cloud services and Internet of Things(IoT) devices,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner.

“IoT devices, in particular, are starting to pick up the slack from devices. Where the devices segment is saturated, IoT is not.”

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Driven by cloud-based software subscriptions, spending on enterprise software is forecast to grow 8.5% this year, to a worldwide total of $421bn, Gartner said in the report.

The study also found that organisations are expected to increase spending on enterprise application software in 2019, with more of the budget shifting towards software as a service (SaaS)

Despite a slowdown in the mobile phone market, Gartner also said that the devices segment is expected to grow 1.9% in 2019.

Elsewhere, Lovelock also noted that if the IT sector wishes to continue to grow, it needs to address concerns such as the widenening skills gap.

"In addition to buying behavior changes, we are also seeing skills of internal staff beginning to lag as organizations adopt new technologies, such as IoT devices, to drive digital business,” he explained.

“Nearly half of the IT workforce is in urgent need of developing skills or competencies to support their digital business initiatives. Skill requirements to keep up, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, API and services platform design and data science, are changing faster than we’ve ever seen before.”

The results of the report are based on analysis of sales by thousands of technology vendors across a range of IT products and services.

“Despite uncertainty fueled by recession rumors, Brexit, and trade wars and tariffs, the likely scenario for IT spending in 2019 is growth,” Lovelock added.

“IT is no longer just a platform that enables organizations to run their business on. It is becoming the engine that moves the business.

“As digital business and digital business ecosystems move forward, IT will be the thing that binds the business together.”