IDC Predictions 2009

IDC published today its Predictions for 2009, called IDC Predictions 2009: An Economic Pressure Cooker Will Accelerate the IT Industry Transformation.

The ten predictions, according IDC document: "In 2009, two powerful forces will collide in the IT market: a deep global recession, and a radical IT industry transformation that has been in progress for the past several years. These two forces, interacting with each other, loom large in virtually all of our 10 predictions themes for 2009:

1 - Global IT growth will be cut in half — it will be critically important for suppliers to orient toward segments that are spending at above-market growth rates.
2 - Emerging markets and small businesses spending will slow significantly — but outperform the market even more than in 2008.
3 - The IT industry's expansion to "the cloud" will accelerate — as the bad economy drives more users to the cloud model's low costs, and IT suppliers follow suit.
4 - The struggling offline economy will drive more shoppers to the online economy — as over 1.5 billion people go online, driving over $8 trillion in online sales.
5 - The telecom industry will consolidate, and expand, in 2009 — driven by the need for scale in developed markets, a wireless land-grab in emerging markets, and the promise of the cloud model to greatly expand telcos' value-added services.
6 - It will be a grim year for mobile gadgets — as volume growth flattens in mobile phones, as netbook PCs expand the market but threaten notebook pricing and margins, and as consolidation looms in personal navigation devices.
7 - The crumbling of the "business/personal" wall in IT will accelerate — as the economy and the "2.0" culture drive consumer and business technology together, opening new opportunities and threatening to create new IT industry dinosaurs.
8 - The reinvention of information access and analysis will accelerate in 2009 — driven by blow-back from the financial industry fiasco, the growing information avalanche from social networking and digital video, and the ambitions of key vendors to own the last — and most strategic — patch of IT market real estate.
9 - Green technologies will have a good year, disguised as "cost cutting" — with good demand for green tech that can deliver near-term savings, but temporarily shoving capital-intensive green investments down the agenda.
10 - Government initiatives in 2009 will catalyze massive IT investments and industry growth — focused on economic recovery, energy and health industry streamlining, and improving financial markets' stability and transparency."

You can donwload the IDC document (registration required) and also watch a video with Frank Gens, IDC Chief Analyst.

This is an interesting list. In my opinion, about the two powerful forces, the IT industry is shifting quickly, but I hope the global recession is not so deep.