but against my personal expectations, they predict only 2% growth in 2007. If correct, this will have an interesting effect on jobs and software development.
According to this <a href='http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/itspending/story/0,10801,105360,00.html?source=x10'>article </a> in ComputerWorld, Gartner predicts an overall increase of 5.5% in IT spending in 2006. The areas of greatest increase (and hence better job opportunities) will be companies with less than 100 employees (7%) and the service sector (11%). Mobile technology, software development tools and middleware will be the "hot" technologies.
However, they predict 2007 will be a very challenging year with an overall increase in 2%.
Since this report is used by many businesses to plan their budgets, I suspect that the IT budgets of many firms, especially larger ones, will be inadequate to support the necessary development. There will be a lot of extra hours and stresses for salaried IT workers. Consultants will have to be hired to take up the extra load, and there may even be a drop in the value of some IT stocks for the simple reason that they couldn't meet their own expectations.
2008 should prove to be an interesting year for personnel... probably a large hiring drive with good salaries.
I realize I am going out on a limb here, because 3 IT-industry years is like 21 years in other industries. But I am still optimistic about the industry and looking forward to seeing what happens.
