How Much Is The Federal IT Spend Growing?
It's not like the federal government won't spend money on technology; Gartner sees the federal-level IT spend increasing every year, headed for $81.1 billion in 2012. But if that technology doesn't fall within certain buckets -- efficiency-minded, money-saving technologies are at the top of the list -- it probably won't be a priority.
FedSources, one of the government IT-centric analyst firms studying the federal spend heading into the government's fiscal 2011, released its 2011 federal budget analysis in mid-May. According to the report, the federal budget shows a $36 billion drop in federal spending on government contracts, which will certainly impact new IT contracts.
"There's not a lot of new developmental work, and this year, that's going to be an even stronger message," suggested Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at FedSources. "But on the other hand, there's still a lot of pressure to keep costs down in infrastructure. Think IT consolidation, and think of everything and anything that can save money, like green, like virtualization."
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