The forecast is cloudy, Gartner says

Editor’s note: Writing today’s Skinny and filling in for LTW Editor Rick Smith this week is Noah Garrett. You can reach Noah directly at noah@thinkngc.com.

A wonderful story was posted this week by Steve Lohr at The New York Times who commented on an unbelievably large report just released by Gartner revealing the outlook for information technology spending worldwide for the rest of the year and the next few.

He writes, “It is a number-laden tome whose overall findings aren’t particularly surprising.”

I have to agree – both in the drastic size of the report and its results.

According to the report, Gartner projects that IT spending will grow 10 percent to $3.4 trillion this year worldwide. The softness of the U.S. economy right now will be offset by the strength in emerging economies like Brazil, Russia, India and China. In the Middle East and Africa, Gartner expects technology spending to rise by 15 percent this year.

IT has become central to the world’s economy, based on the numbers. But, spending totals in the report are not the place to look for future predictions. That place is at the enterprise level, specifically how cloud computing will bring “dramatic growth in IT products in some areas; significant reductions in other areas.”

Basically, Gartner explains in this report that the corporate shift to cloud computing is underway and will be a disruptive force in business in the years to come. And, in case you didn’t know, Gartner just happens to be the largest technology adviser to corporations in the world.

I love how Lohr sums this up: “The pattern is similar to what happened with electricity in the early 1900s, when companies found it was less costly to buy power from the new breed of utility suppliers instead of owning and running their own electric motors.”

Funny thing is that I’ve been saying it for years. Like I said, I’m not surprised by the findings in this report and that Gartner predicts that “… all sorts of new uses and new companies may spring up on the back of the cloud phenomenon. And no one knows what those might be yet.”

Although there are still bunches of “what if’s” out there, corporate clouds are beginning to take shape and it will be the future. How long it takes remains to be seen.

Just remember, one day I’ll be able to look back with a grin and say, I told you so.