Smart Computing to Drive Growth in Tech Investment

“Smart” computing will drive the next period of growth in the information technology industry, according to Forrester Research.

IBM (IBM), Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT) are current IT vendors best positioned to win in next-gen technology, but GE (GE) and Siemens (SI) will become bigger factors, analyst Andrew Bartels says in a presentation on Forrester’s IT 2009-2016 Long-Term Forecast. Bartels describes smart computing as “Flexible, adaptable, responsive, and extended IT systems that incorporate awareness (location, status, condition) and analytics to make IT more intelligent to solve new business problems.”

After a tough 2009, Bartels expects tech investment to lead the economic recovery in the US by 2011, with a CAGR of 2.7% from 2008-2016.

Highlights of the report:

• New smart computing technology will drive a new period of rapid growth in tech investment.
• Old technology continues to be in demand, but purchases grow at trend rate.
• Solutions based on smart computing technology will address critical business issues.
• Sales directly to business, not to IT.
• Investment in new technology driven by strategic rationales, not cost/benefit calculations, with multimillion-dollar deals.
• Highly vertical solutions will capture more of the growth, although not the largest share of sales.
• Asset-intensive industries like government, healthcare, utilities, education, and professional services will be the biggest buyers.

Comments

[BeachRider:]

IBM, MSFT & ORCL are tech darlings. They each have significant risk with new ventures over the next 12 months. People follow them, on faith.

GE and SI are much darker horses. GE will simply suck until they get their GE-financial stuff untracked. SI is a simpler company to understand, but their technology is more middle-of-the-pack.

None of these will zoom upward in the next 12 months. There could be good appreciation (~10-20%) if things break well for the first-three, though.

Jun 24 10:18 AM