Forrester: Bring On The Tech Turnaround

In an even greater turnaround, worldwide spending for IT will increase 8.1 percent to more than $1.6 trillion in 2010, Forrester Research predicts, compared with an 8.9 percent decline in 2009.

"The technology downturn of 2008 and 2009 is unofficially over," Forrester principal analyst Andrew Bartels said in a statement. In the U.S. the recovery in information technology "will be much stronger than the overall economic recovery, with technology spending growing at more than twice the rate of gross domestic product this year."

Forrester predicts that the IT industry is entering a new six- to seven-year cycle of growth, fueled by new technologies such as advanced business analytics, service-oriented architecture, server and storage virtualization, cloud computing and unified communications.

Computer hardware and software sales will show the most growth, with spending for software increasing 9.7 percent globally (measured in U.S. dollars) and purchases of computer equipment rising 8.2 percent, the report forecasts. Sales of communications equipment will grow 7.6 percent. Spending will increase 6.8 percent for IT consulting and systems integration services and 7.1 percent for IT outsourcing services.

Regionally, IT spending increases will be robust in Western and Central Europe (up 11.2 percent), Canada (9.9 percent) Asia-Pacific (7.8 percent) and Latin America (7.7 percent). But IT sales growth will only be around 2.4 percent in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.