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Gartner has released its global IT spending projections for 2012: It is forecasting a 3.7 percent increase from 2011 to $3.8 trillion. This forecast is a downward revision from its earlier 2012 outlook of 4.6 percent growth. Last year, IT spending clocked in at $3.7 trillion, which was up 6.9 percent from 2010 levels.
Welcome back to the discussion. At the top of my list is the idea of resiliency, which I consider a more practical form of sustainability for business. We are now encountering a wave of sustainability-oriented ideas in the popular culture. Forty miles per gallon is the new 30, someone said, and I have seen or heard the word "sustainable" used tentatively more than once in advertising.
My Pick of the Week is a brand new category of computers called "ultrabooks." Think of Apple’s thin MacBook Air — but on Windows. These are a hit with Apple users, so there is no reason they shouldn’t be just as popular with the Windows crowd, as long as they run well. I have not used them yet, but from what I have seen, they have a full-size keyboard but are light and thin — very easy to carry around.
There was an interesting article in the January 2012 edition of Vanity Fair, a magazine I’ve come to enjoy though for many years regarded as another of those things my wife would like more than I would. But VF carries an interesting blend of current events and politics, as well as the glossy pictures and stories of pop-culture icons that seem to be necessary to sell a magazine these days.
Over the last 25 years, I have had a ball as a tech analyst following who is hot and who is not and what is next. There was plenty to follow in 2011. What about 2012? It may be even busier with winners and losers. At the end of every year, I look around the industry and try to call the winners and losers and predict what is coming next.