It is the time of the year again when not only do we celebrate the holiday season, but we also start to get the major analyst predictions for the 2010 IT market. In this post we'll list out the IDC 2010 Top Ten predictions. I will follow up with an analysis of these predictions during the week.

As a treat, I will also include IDC's 2009 top ten predictions, and if I have time this week, I'll examine just how accurate they were.

Here are the top ten for 2010 from IDC:



And here are the 2009 predictions:




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Here is a video from IDC discussing their 2009 predictions for IT. Since we're closing in on the halfway point to the year, it's interesting to examine how some of these predictions are faring. That we will do next week. For now, enjoy the video.

Have a good weekend.





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IDC is predicting that the IT tech sector will grow in 2009, albeit at an anemic pace. However given all the challenges in the economy, and what many are saying will be a deep and long global recession, growth in any industry is something to be cheerful about.

Speaking of the global recession, in the same report IDC is predicting that the tech sector will experience a full recovery by the end of the "forecast period" with growth rates up to 6% by 2012. All told, the IT tech sector should be okay through this downturn if the analyst forecasts hold.

Regional forecasts are:

On a regional basis, spending growth in Japan, Western Europe, and the United States will hover around 1% in 2009. In contrast, the emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America will continue to experience healthy growth, but at levels notably lower than the double-digit gains previously forecast. On a sector basis, software and services will enjoy solid growth while hardware spending, with the exception of storage, is expected to decline in 2009.

And compared to the 2001 downturn:

"Although the revised forecast and the downside scenario both reflect a grim outlook for global economic growth over the next several years, IT spending actually fares well when compared to the previous downturn after the events of September 11, 2001," said Stephen Minton, vice president, Worldwide IT Markets and Strategies at IDC. "Companies currently don't have the asset and spending 'overhang' that enabled them to put off purchases after Y2K and the dot-com bubble. As a result, there will be greater pressure for them to continue making IT investments in order to stay competitive."

Hang in there everyone.


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IDC, or specifically its subsidiary Manufacturing Insights, has issued a report that is bullish on collaboration technology of the Web 2.0 variety. While it is not as numbers focused as the Gartner report, it proposes to change the landscape for the Knowledge Management (KM) market space, which is where collaboration tools of the past have resided, by interesting Web 2.0 technologies into the mix.

Ostensibly this makes sense in that social applications are inherently collaborative in nature, but when coupled with the capability to drive SCM, CRM, ERP, and other business processes, it starts to form a much broader picture of how B2B and B2C will in some ways converge with KM.

According to this Manufacturing Insights report, the merging of several factors, such as an aging workforce, an ever increasingly reliable commercial Internet, and an evolved technology set of Knowledge Management (KM) tools makes the current Knowledge Management iteration different from collaboration technology movements of the past.
The report offers context for those tasked with defining, structuring and deploying Knowledge Management strategies, through the exploitation of Web 2.0 collaboration technologies. Manufacturing Insights believes that the confluence of business drivers, demographic realities, and emergence of commercially viable Web 2.0 technologies will make the future versions of Knowledge Management more likely to succeed than previous efforts.

The areas they view as being relevant:

The coalescence of the aging workforce and the increasing viability of Web 2.0 technologies will drive corporate Knowledge Management initiatives. These initiatives will assist manufacturers confronting the current and future challenges presented by knowledge deficit and personnel attrition...

...organizations should focus on Knowledge Management initiatives that offer a mix of structure and prescriptive elements, such as Case Based Reasoning, combined with informal solutions that offer information flow at the speed of thought interactivity, such as Instant Messenger (IM). This approach to Knowledge Management delivers agility in decision making and knowledge re-use opportunities over the long term.

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Here's another take on the integrated circuits sector, from IDC and iSuppi Corp, which sounds similar in scope to the Gartner forecast.

Keep in mind though, that much of the concern is linked to the situation with the credit markets, so until that situation is resolved, the picture will remain cloudy. The main thing is to maintain calm and objectively look at the markets in IT.

Research firm IDC has released a report through its CMO Advisory Practice which discusses the topic of marketing budget trends and organizational transformation in the marketing area for tech firms. Although the report doesn't explicitly call it out, the driving force behind the trends are social apps and Enterprise 2.0, and as these practices begin to permeate the enterprise, marketing areas will not be immune to the effects.

As such the future of marketing is going to be based more on collaboration, possibly with aspects of the end user driven characteristics of Web 2.0. The effect will be felt in everything from sales to focus groups to advertising campaigns. Feedback will be immediate and marketing organizations will need to be flexible and agile (for an example of this look at the recent Microsoft ad campaign). That said, here is what IDC has to say:

IT vendor marketing budgets will expand by 3.5% for the full year 2008, below the level of investment increases of the previous three years. IDC analysts are observing that many marketing executives are now exploring broader and more sweeping marketing organizational changes, as they seek to increase the return on their efforts and attempt to get marketing better aligned with the content requirements of sales teams, partners, prospects, and customers.

Richard Vancil, vice president of IDC's Executive Advisory Group, noted some key trends emerging within the tech marketing community. "The 2008 decline in budget growth was expected, given the tech economy. But the real story is behind the numbers: tech marketers are getting more input from all sides that greater transformation is required. Much of the corporate marketing agenda across the tech vendor community is really disconnected with the information or content wants and needs of the key constituents of marketing. The sales teams have never really climbed 'on board' to marketing's agenda. And in IDC's research with technical and business buyers, we see that most elements of the classic tech marketing agenda continue to fall short of how those buyers want to consume information today."

The implication here is that "buyers" are demanding information as opposed to classic marketing presentation (e.g. advertising). This is not to say that advertising is dead, rather, it means that advertising and information sharing and collaboration are converging. As such, tech marketing will require that you work with your customers, listen, and respond to their concerns. Failure to make these adjustments will determine which organizations win and which lose.

"IDC has specific guidance for organizational change," noted Vancil. "We are guiding clients toward an expanded Sales Enablement function with an emphasis on content alignment. We are also advocating that management teams staff and execute a larger Campaign Management function so that unilateral and un-coordinated product marketing can be better tied into integrated themes.

Finally, we are advising senior marketers to consider additional budget shifts. Our latest research shows that only about one-third of the average marketing budget is executed in the field geographies: the rest is centralized within corporate marketing and product-line marketing budgets. Our guidance is that even where these centralized budgets are 'owned' by corporate or product marketers; they should be allocated and 'spent' by the regions. We'd like to see the regional spend figure approach 50% of the total."

What the above quote means is that the model of campaign decisions being made in walled gardens won't cut it anymore. The social aspect of the web means that information sharing is rapid, faster than decision making processes made in board rooms and conference rooms, and if you are not extremely connected with your customers, you are at risk. Web 2.0 has created a level playing field for all, and it is a mistake to think that this same phenomenon will not do the same thing to business models. Those who adapt to these new realities will thrive, while those who do not will waste precious time deliberating in conference rooms and trying to ineffectually apply outmoded top-down approaches. Everything is becoming community driven as a result of the social apps revolution, whether that community is regional or interest-based.

The successful CMO of the future will be the CMO who embraces collaboration.


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We've compiled some stats on the area of digital advertising, which is a space largely owned by Google, but is also changing as social networks begin to expand and take hold. Added to these changes are the rise of 3d networks such as Second Life, IMVU, and others, which at present are outside of Google's realm, and perhaps not often thought of as being part of the digital advertising landscape, but nevertheless are increasingly showing some marketing value (albeit carefully thought out).

To get a sense of the size of this market, we turn to IDC, who says that web oriented advertising revenue will increase from ~$25 billion in 2007 to ~$51 billion in 2012. In addition, revenue for web based video advertising will increase from ~$5m in 2007 to nearly $4 billion by 2012. In short, this is a very lucrative area.

Now, let's compare IDC's estimates with the revenue for traditional media advertising. This includes TV, radio, and such. For broadcast media this particular area shows a small 0.6% in aggregate for q1 2008. The numbers are:

1.7% increase for TV

4.5% decrease for radio

5.2% decrease for newspaper ads

.8% upside for magazine ads

What's important here is the trend - web advertising revenue is increasing and broadcast advertising revenue is flat or decreasing.

In terms of digital advertising, there are five main areas to look at:

1. Banner ads (the grandaddy of digital advertising)

2. Search advertising (where Google reigns supreme)

3. Social networking advertising (which is where we will place Second Life for now, but of course this is primarily MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, et al)

4. Affiliate marketing (made popular by Amazon, but quickly becoming an e-Commerce phenomenon in general)

5. e-mail Marketing (spam notwithstanding)

Now the interesting thing about all these areas if that the growth in them is very healthy. Banner ads are expected to hit nearly $6b in revenue this year for example. Search advertising is expected to do even better, at approximately $11b in 2008. The newcomers, such as social networking, are expected to come in at just over $1b in 2008. So advertising on the web in aggregate is a great place to be.



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Research firm IDC is reporting that some of the following areas are enjoying growth, this despite a lackluster economy in general and a banking system in disarray (which as an aside, we predict that the next decade is going to belong to tech, information tech, medical tech, and green tech), and an oil industry that is out of control.

These may be early signs that the economy is going to change, and that tech is going to retake the growth position that it held in the pre-Bush years. Here are some of the things that IDC is highlighting:


Apple posts growth nine times the industry average. Takes #3 spot in the US market

Apple executes its market strategy better than any other company. It's consistent in its message, that message is always out there, and it markets to the niches that are most relevant to it, particularly people with disposable income who can afford to buy its products.

That audience will help Apple weather the U.S. economic slowdown better than most computer makers. It's catering to folks with money who are immune to the downturn, so that's good in the short term, maybe even in the medium term.

In the longer term, their global share is still small, around 3%, so the opportunity to take that higher is enormous. Apple's brand is highly recognizable around the world, and now that you have growing middle classes and growing disposable incomes in places like China and India, there will be huge opportunities for Apple.

Overall PC shipments grew 30 percent year-on-year and about 15 percent higher than IDC's initial forecast

Total PCs shipped in the first quarter reached 280,000 units due to strong consumer demand especially for laptops, according to IDC.

PC shipment grew 30 percent year-on-year and about 15 percent higher than IDC's initial forecast, according to a copy of IDC's Quarterly PC tracker obtained by INQUIRER.net.

IDC noted strongest growth in the notebook market, with the entry of more affordable models and small form-factor laptops like the Asus eePC.

Lastly, Open Source

The majority of average company revenue (63 percent) is from software products, with 30 percent from services; revenue from hardware and the resale of third-party products and services is negligible. These vendors are truly software vendors.
The majority of revenue from OSS (59 percent on average) is from subscriptions. In fact, 10 of 21 respondents generated 100 percent of their OSS revenue from subscriptions.

The average OSS revenue from Windows-based products (35 percent) is less than OSS revenue from Linux-based products (54 percent), which is not reflective of the installed base in mainstream enterprises.

On average, revenue from North America represents 62 percent of total OSS revenue, while Europe represents 23 percent.

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Back in May we reported that Gartner had issued a report that called Windows Vista "doomed." In April we reported that IDC was showing growth in the market for Apple. And in February we reported on Gartner's Top Technology Trends which indicated that "by 2011, Apple will double its U.S. and Western Europe unit market share in Computers." We also reported that the trend for Macs is not just consumer based, but as reported by the Yankee Group is also happening in the enterprise.

Now both Gartner and IDC are reporting numbers that support their prognostications. Apple's Mac sales grew 38 percent in Q2 2008, and that's just in the US. Ironically, while Windows has slowed to a 4.2 percent growth crawl in the US, globally it is up 16 percent, while Apple only managed 3.2 percent growth outside of the US. Globally Apple now has an 8.5 percent market share, which is up from 6.4 percent in 2007.

These trends, along with the growth of the iPhone, suggest that Apple is poised to become one of the major players in the Enterprise 2.0 landscape, especially in the areas of Computing Fabric and WOA. As such, IT departments should begin to get themselves familiar with OSX, which if they are already versed in Unix shouldn't be too much of a learning curve, but the trends are clear: Apple is going to be part of the new infrastructure.




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