Analysts mixed forecasts for 2003

By Steve Malone

Posted on 3 Jan 2003 at 11:18

Spending on IT products will either decline this year or fall - depending on which analyst's report you read. Whilst The Aberdeen Group is suggesting modest growth for the IT industry in 2003, a Goldman Sachs' survey of US CIO's paints a much gloomier picture.

Whilst the Aberdeen Group doesn't predict a return to the heady days of the double digit growth of the late '90s it does suggest an improvement over the 1% of 2002. The report says that growth may return to a more "sustainable" 4-5% which will continue through to 2006. The report does warn that ` We simply do not see the compelling reasons for user organizations to spend heavily on technology'.

That also seems to be the view of the Goldman Sachs survey of Chief Information Officers yet come to a much more downbeat conclusion. It says that it expects companies to spend even less on hardware and software in 2003 than they did in 2002. Furthermore 43% of the sample are not expecting to spend more on IT until 2004.

The Goldman Sachs research report, survey carried out in December, says they expect a 1 percent decline in spending in 2003, compared with a previous outlook for growth of 2 percent to 3 percent which was expected only last October. One can only assume that the survey was taking place during the particularly bloody 2002 annual budget negotiations.

However, the report agreed with Aberdeen over the prospects over the longer term. Goldman Sachs growth forecasts also stand around 5 percent although this is down from a previous range of 6 percent to 7 percent.