Gartner: IT spending stable, growth in cloud services

Global spending on IT products and services will rise 3 percent in 2012 to $3.6 trillion, according to figures released Monday by research firm Gartner. The forecast is up from the 2.5 percent growth projection Gartner issued earlier this year.

“While the challenges facing global economic growth persist — the eurozone crisis, weaker U.S. recovery, a slowdown in China — the outlook has at least stabilized,” said Gartner research Vice President Richard Gordon in a statement. However, “continued caution” is advisable for the near future, according to Gordon.

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Public cloud services spending will jump to $109 billion this year, compared to $91 billion last year, Gartner said.

Global IT services spending is set to grow 2.3 percent to $864 billion in 2012, according to Monday’s announcement.

Spending on hardware will account for $420 billion this year, a rise of 3.4 percent.

Enterprise software spending will be $281 billion in 2012, a 4.3 percent jump.

Many enterprise software stocks suffered last week, following data-integration vendor Informatica’s announcement that its second-quarter results would fall short of market expectations. Informatica CEO Sohaib Abbasi cited the “changing macroeconomic environment, especially in Europe,” as a contributing factor.

Meanwhile, telecom equipment spending will be $377 billion this year, a 10.8 percent rise. Spending on telecom services is set to grow 1.4 percent to about $1.69 trillion, according to Gartner.

The analyst firm plans to discuss the spending outlook in greater detail during a webcast event on Tuesday, including forecasts through 2016.