NEWS
Gartner says worldwide IT spending
forecast to grow 2.4 per cent in 2017
John-David Lovelock, Vice President and
distinguished analyst at Gartner.
Worldwide IT spending is projected to total
$3.5 trillion in 2017, a 2.4 per cent increase
from 2016, according to Gartner. This growth
rate is up from the previous quarter’s
forecast of 1.4 per cent, due to the US dollar
decline against many foreign currencies.
“Digital business is having a profound
effect on the way business is done and how
it is supported,” said John-David Lovelock,
Vice President and distinguished analyst at
Gartner. “The impact of digital business is
giving rise to new categories; for example, the
convergence of “software plus services plus
intellectual property.” These next-generation
offerings are fuelled by business and
technology platforms that will be the driver
for new categories of spending. Industry-
specific disruptive technologies include the
Internet of Things (IoT) in manufacturing,
blockchain in financial services (and other
industries), and smart machines in retail. The
focus is on how technology is disrupting and
enabling business.”
The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending
Forecast is the leading indicator of major
technology trends across the hardware,
software, IT services and telecom markets.
For more than a decade, global IT and
business executives have been using
these highly anticipated quarterly reports
8
to recognise market opportunities and
challenges, and base their critical business
decisions on proven methodologies rather
than guesswork.
The worldwide enterprise software
market is forecast to grow 7.6 per cent
in 2017, up from 5.3 per cent growth in
2016. As software applications allow more
organisations to derive revenue from
digital business channels, there will be a
stronger need to automate and release new
applications and functionality.
“With the increased adoption of
SaaS-based enterprise applications, there
also comes an increase in acceptance of
IT operations management (ITOM) tools
that are also delivered from the cloud,”
said Mr Lovelock. “These cloud-based
tools allow infrastructure and operations
(I&O) organisations to more rapidly add
functionality and adopt newer technologies
to help them manage faster application
release cycles. If the I&O team does not
monitor and track the rapidly changing
environment, it risks infrastructure and
application service degradation, which
ultimately impacts the end-user experience
and can have financial as well as brand
repercussions.”
IT spending increased in 2016, but only
two of the top 10 IT vendors posted organic
revenue growth. With revenue sources still
tied to the Nexus of Forces (the convergence
of social, mobility, cloud and information),
some of the top 10 vendors will fare better
in 2017 due to strength in mobile phone
sales. Worldwide spending on devices (PCs,
tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones)
is projected to grow 3.8 per cent in 2017,
to reach $654 billion. This is up from the
previous quarter’s forecast of 1.7 per cent.
Mobile phone growth will be driven by
increased average selling prices (ASPs) for
premium phones in mature markets due
to the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and
the increased mix of basic phones over
utility phones. However, the tablet market
continues to decline, as replacement cycles
remain extended.
Middle East and Africa
to spend $8 billion on
IoT in 2017
Middle East organisations are adopting the
latest Internet of Things (IoT) technology
infrastructure to drive the wider region’s
$8 billion market, global IoT enabler SAP
recently announced.
As the interconnected IoT era advances,
Middle East organisations are forced to
manage a vast network of connected
devices, wearables and physical objects;
from cars to oil drills. Using machine-to-
machine technology, organisations can
provide a secure, usable infrastructure
that shares machine and sensor data for
actionable information in real time.
In the Middle East and Africa, IoT spend is
set to reach $8 billion in 2017. “The strength
Gergi Abboud, Managing Director for the Gulf,
Levant, North Africa, and Pakistan at SAP.
of an IoT use case improves exponentially
when you unleash the connectivity between
all of the ‘things’ inside and outside of an
enterprise across its supply chain. Hence, a
secure IoT platform on the cloud becomes
vital for supporting next generation
applications, which can scale up quickly
and easily,” said Gergi Abboud, Managing
Director for the Gulf, Levant, North Africa,
and Pakistan at SAP.
In the Middle East, SAP is seeing strong
demand for the SAP Leonardo digital
innovation system. SAP Leonardo provides
breakthrough technologies and services
that lets organisations take advantage
of embedded IoT capabilities and other
technology innovations on the cloud.
Issue 09
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