Despite uncertainty fuelled by recession rumours, Brexit, and trade wars and tariffs, the likely scenario for IT spending in 2019 is growth. Well, at least that’s what John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner, thinks. 

Gartner says in 2019, IT spending is projected to total $3.76 trillion, an increase of 3.2% from 2018.

However, according to Lovelock, there are a lot of dynamic changes happening in regards to which segments will be driving growth in the future.

He said: “Spending is moving from saturated segments such as mobile phones, PCs and on-premises data centre infrastructure to cloud services and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. IoT devices, in particular, are starting to pick up the slack from devices. Where the devices segment is saturated, IoT is not.”

The top 10 infrastructure and operations trends for 2019, according to Gartner

Serverless computing, AI, network agility, edge computing, the death of the data centre, new roles, SaaS denial, talent management and global infrastructure drive the Gartner top 10 infrastructure and operations trends for 2019

“IT is no longer just a platform that enables organisations to run their business on. It is becoming the engine that moves the business,” added Mr Lovelock. “As digital business and digital business ecosystems move forward, IT will be the thing that binds the business together.”

Thanks to this shift to the cloud, enterprise software will carry on growing in popularity, worldwide spending in this area is projected to grow 8.5 per cent in 2019. It will grow another 8.2% in 2020 to a total $466 billion (see Table below).

Despite decline in the mobile phone market, overall, the device market is set to grow 1.6 per cent in 2019.

“In addition to buying behaviour changes, we are also seeing skills of internal staff beginning to lag as organisations adopt new technologies, such as IoT devices, to drive digital business,” said Mr Lovelock. “Nearly half of the IT workforce is in urgent need of developing skills or competencies to support their digital business initiatives. Skill requirements to keep up, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, API and services platform design and data science, are changing faster than we’ve ever seen before.”

The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2019, according to Gartner

Blockchain, artificial intelligence, empowered edge, privacy and ethics, quantum computing, immersive experiences, augmented analytics, autonomous things and digital twins drive the Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019. Read here