Gartner revises down its 2019 IT spending predictions amid data center decline

Gartner predicts global IT spending will total $3.79 trillion in 2019, an increase of 1.1% from 2018. In January, Gartner projected 2019 spending growth of 3.2%.
 
According to the research firm, currency headwinds fuelled by the strengthening US dollar have caused the lower predictions. While the data center market will decline by 2.8% in 2019, mainly due to expected lower average selling prices (ASPs) in the server market driven by adjustments in the pattern of expected component costs.
 
The shift of enterprise IT spending from traditional (non-cloud) offerings to new, cloud-based alternatives is continuing to drive growth in the enterprise software market. In 2019, the market is forecast to reach $427 billion, up 7.1% from $399 billion in 2018.
 
The largest cloud shift has so far occurred in application software. However, Gartner expects increased growth for the infrastructure software segment in the near-term, particularly in integration platform as a service (iPaaS) and application platform as a service (aPaaS).
 
“Disruptive emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), will reshape business models as well as the economics of public- and private-sector enterprises. AI is having a major effect on IT spending, although its role is often misunderstood,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. “AI is not a product, it is really a set of techniques or a computer engineering discipline. As such, AI is being embedded in many existing products and services, as well as being central to new development efforts in every industry. Gartner’s AI business value forecast predicts that organisations will receive $1.9 trillion worth of benefit from the use of AI this year alone.”

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