Tech Spending Forecast to Top $3.7 Trillion by 2013
Though PC sales have stagnated as of late, worldwide IT spending is in great shape and forecast to surpass $3.7 trillion in 2013, according to the crystal ball readers employed by Gartner. That would represent a 3.8 percent bump from projected spending of $3.6 trillion in 2012, but what's even more telling is the amount of IT jobs opening up.
"By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data, generating 1.9 million IT jobs in the United States," said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research. "In addition, every big data-related role in the U.S. will create employment for three people outside of IT, so over the next four years a total of 6 million jobs in the U.S. will be generated by the information economy."
Image Source: Flickr (photologue_np)
This rapid growth is great news, though it also creates a unique problem that we haven't seen much of in this economy: lack of available talent.
"Our public and private education systems are failing us. Therefore, only one-third of the IT jobs will be filled. Data experts will be a scarce, valuable commodity," Sondergaard added.
Gartner went on to make predictions in several different fields of computing. For example, Gartner forecasts the mobile device market growing to 1.6 billion units by 2016, noting that two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone by then, and 40 percent of the workforce will be mobile. It will be up to IT leaders to figure out how best to leverage the mobile landscape that's emerging.
On a related note, Gartner expects iPads to be more common in business environments than BlackBerry devices, an interesting observation considering that iPads appear mostly geared towards content consumption rather than productivity chores.
"By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data, generating 1.9 million IT jobs in the United States," said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research. "In addition, every big data-related role in the U.S. will create employment for three people outside of IT, so over the next four years a total of 6 million jobs in the U.S. will be generated by the information economy."
Image Source: Flickr (photologue_np)
This rapid growth is great news, though it also creates a unique problem that we haven't seen much of in this economy: lack of available talent.
"Our public and private education systems are failing us. Therefore, only one-third of the IT jobs will be filled. Data experts will be a scarce, valuable commodity," Sondergaard added.
Gartner went on to make predictions in several different fields of computing. For example, Gartner forecasts the mobile device market growing to 1.6 billion units by 2016, noting that two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone by then, and 40 percent of the workforce will be mobile. It will be up to IT leaders to figure out how best to leverage the mobile landscape that's emerging.
On a related note, Gartner expects iPads to be more common in business environments than BlackBerry devices, an interesting observation considering that iPads appear mostly geared towards content consumption rather than productivity chores.
