IDC research points to the rise and rise of BYOD
A couple of weeks ago the international analyst firm IDC published the latest in its global IT spending reports: “State of the Market: IT Spending Review & Forecast Q2 2013,” The report looks at IT spending by region and by category such as PCs, mobile devices, printers and software.
A couple of weeks ago the international analyst firm IDC published the latest in its global IT spending reports: “State of the Market: IT Spending Review & Forecast Q2 2013,” The report looks at IT spending by region and by category such as PCs, mobile devices, printers and software.
Most of the analysis of the report in the media has centred around the fact that because the economic slowdown in China continued for longer than expected, and because of public sector spending cuts around the world, IT spending has slowed. In the, IDC lowered its forecast for worldwide IT spending to 4.6% growth this year, down from a May projection of 4.9% growth. IDC also reduced its IT spending forecast for China to 9.5% growth this year. Its May projection was 12.9% growth.
But while some commentators agonised over the impact of China on the global economy, two other findings from the research caught my eye:
First – mobile devices are not seeing the same slowdown as the rest of the hardware industry. In fact IDC has revised its growth projections upwards in this area. It now forecasts worldwide spending on tablet computers will increase 6.5% to 39.0% this year. At the same time, spending on smartphones is expected to rise 18.5%, increasing from the May projection of 17.2%.
Second – software is also unaffected by the overall hardware underperformance. According to the IDC report, software spending, including software as a service, is expected to grow by 5.5% this year, unchanged from its previous forecast. Growth in traditional packaged software remains sluggish, though, compared to cloud-based models. In fact IDC predicts that by the end of this year, almost 10.0% of total software spending will have moved to the cloud.
As the consumerisation of enterprise IT continues apace, these trends are and will continue to impact IT departments and their supplier partners. To me they reinforce the belief of other analyst firms: that BYOD and BYOA are not going away. This means IT departments need to invest even more heavily in mobile, cloud-based development expertise – be that in-house or outsourced.
