Declines in device sales will be more than offset by growth in other areas, according to Gartner Research’s latest predictions. Credit: Thinkstock Overall spending on IT products and services is expected to climb by about 5.5% this year, fueled mainly by software and services, according to a forecast from tech analyst firm Gartner Research. That level of growth would result in a total expenditure of $4.6 trillion. In the area of data center systems, which includes servers, internal controller-based systems and networking equipment among other things, the latter is likely to prove a robust engine of growth, with Gartner predicting 8.4% year-on-year growth in constant currency. According to the forecast’s author, John-David Lovelock, the data center category as a whole should rise by 3.7% in 2023. “[Data center vendors] are still trying to dig out from under supply chain problems,” he said. “Spending would have been even higher if manufacturers would’ve been able to build more, spend more and ship more.” The software category is predicted to show the largest year-on-year growth figures in Gartner’s forecast, at 12.3%. That’s driven largely by analytics and business intelligence, as well as custom applications for work, Lovelock said. “Most of the things in the analytics platform space, except for the older ones, are doing very well,” he noted. The lone category predicted to shrink in size this year is endpoint devices, set to decline by 4.6%. The issue there, according to Lovelock, is that most of the market is highly saturated and users don’t have a particular reason to purchase new devices or upgrade existing ones at the moment. “With inflation cutting the purchasing power of consumers, they’re holding off on replacements,” he said, noting that the spending spikes seen in 2020 and 2021 were largely the product of COVID-induced remote work demands. The cloud market is also set to see increased spending, driven, for the first time, by increased pricing. While the cloud narrative since the technology’s widespread adoption in the 2010s has mostly been of scalability and build-outs leading to lower prices, increased labor and energy costs will finally start pushing prices higher, Lovelock said. “There’s likely going to be some vendors raising their prices this year as they try and hold off rising costs,” he said. “For the next three years, some of the increase in spending is going to be about an increase in price, not an increase in use.” Despite cautious overall economic forecasts, IT spending growth should continue to ramp up for the foreseeable future, according to Gartner, which predicted a further 8.6% growth in 2024. Related content news analysis AI chip shortages continue, but there may be an end in sight While GPUs are in high demand, they still need high-performance memory chips for AI apps. The market is tight for both — for now. By Lucas Mearian May 07, 2024 7 mins CPUs and Processors Generative AI Technology Industry feature Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build? Get the latest info on new preview builds of Windows 11 as they roll out to Windows Insiders. Now updated for Build 22635.3570 for the Beta Channel and Build 26120.461 for the Dev channel, both released on May 3, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 07, 2024 252 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 news analysis 3+ reasons Apple might want to make its own server chips Apple reportedly has a top secret plan to make AI chips for servers to provide generative AI services. By Jonny Evans May 07, 2024 5 mins Apple CPUs and Processors Generative AI opinion GenAI is to data visibility what absolute zero is to a hot summer day Given the plethora of privacy rules already in place in Europe, how are companies with shiny, new, not-understood genAI tools supposed to comply? (Hint: they can’t.) By Evan Schuman May 06, 2024 6 mins Data Privacy GDPR Generative AI Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe