For 2010, Gartner finds that IT budgets will grow just 1.3 percent. That’s not a big increase, particularly after last year’s decrease of 8.1 percent. As a result, 2010 IT budgets will roughly equal 2005 IT budgets.
IT departments are dealing with the situation by investing in technologies that can result in productivity improvements quickly, without a lot of upfront investment. Technologies at the top of the list include virtualization, cloud computing, and Web 2.0 social computing.
According to Gartner, “These technologies, implemented properly, create the opportunity for IT to change its role and the operational performance of the enterprise.”
