IDC: 2012 Predictions for Information Technology Industry

“IDC predicts that worldwide IT spending will grow 6.9% year over year to $1.8 trillion in 2012. As much as 20% of this total spending will be driven by the technologies that are reshaping the IT industry – smartphones, media tablets, mobile networks, social networking, and big data analytics.”  - IDC Press Release

IDC released it’s high level list of predictions for 2012 yesterday.  I attended the annual international conference call which kicks off a series of IDC predictions and trends calls over the next few months. 

The 10 high level prediction areas from IDC for 2012 are:

1. Worldwide IT Spending Growth – Spending growth returns to the industry, fueled by the emerging markets and mobile computing.  European debt crisis could spoil the party.
2. Emerging Markets Growth – China to pass Japan in IT spending as emerging markets grows to 28% share of total global spending.
3. Mobility Devices & Apps – Smartphone/Tablet usage grows and users want these devices to do everything.  Mobile apps explosion continues and the O/S battle rages.
4. Cloud Services Adoption – Spending on cloud services growing 4 times the industry rate.  Apps moving increasingly to the cloud.  PaaS and SaaS wars/acquisitions accelerate.
5. Cloud Services Enablement – Increased cloud services growth will drive huge demand for IT hardware and software offerings that enable those cloud services as well as for technologies that can optimize the cloud data center infrastructure
6. Mobile Networks – IDC says that in 2012 spending on mobile data services will surpass fixed data spending, that growth of video traffic will be an issue, and that telcos are expected to focus on mobile cloud strategies.
7. Big Data Analytics – Digital data continues to grow at an alarming rate (48% in 2012) resulting in focus on Big Data and analytic ‘mashups’ and related M&A activity.
8. Social Business – IDC expects battles to continue between between Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and IBM while Facebook aims to become the B2C platform of choice.
9. Interactive Network of Things – The number of embedded systems, entertainment devices, appliances, and industrial automotive computing devices will outnumber traditional IT input devices by 2014.
10. Intelligent Industry Solutions - Smart Cities related efforts will drive over $40 billion in technology investments in 2012, mainly in Energy, Government, and Healthcare.

The IDC predictions list aligns well with the research I have been doing the last few months.  I will be issuing my own annual trends report in early January. 

The 10 IDC predictions are detailed in the full report IDC Predictions 2012: Competing for 2020 which was authored by Frank Gens, IDC’s Senior VP & Chief Analyst with help from a vast army of IDC analyst teams. 

IDC’s prediction portal for 2012 is at www.idc.com/Predictions12 and it is there you can link to all sorts of content, events, press releases, and complementary research.  I recommend you check out the “Video Commentary” Frank Gens, IDC’s Senior VP & Chief Analyst .  You can also follow IDC on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/idc  for real-time news and updates.

Comments

[Peter Jakab]

I would agree with the mobile tech, its just a matter of time for atleast 80% of the world to own one eventually, thanks for sharing this.

[IT oklahoma]

Sounds really educational. Thanks for discussing this thoroughly.

[Max Nilsen]

I couldn't agree more with the predictions posted here. Mobile apps and marketing would definitely boom this year. Also, the battle among social business platforms would surely be neck to neck this year.

[Minus@ Exchange Contacts]

in fact the mobile technology is too useful for us that's why i agree with you.And also information technology save our time.We depended on info-tech.thank for post this article.

[IT Support Melbourne]

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