Finally, some good news for the battered tech industry: The Big Chill is over. According to both Forrester and Gartner, IT spending in 2010 will continue to thaw, with Forrester expecting 8.4% growth in the U.S. and Gartner predicting 5.3% growth worldwide.  Though anticipated spending levels are hardly what I’d call “sizzling” compared to years past, after the IT spending freeze of 2008-2009, vendors and end-user organizations alike are no doubt happy to embrace a low, yet steady simmer. 

Both research firms expect hardware spending to lead the charge.  Here are some highlights from the research, as reported by Network World:

• In the U.S., computer equipment spending will see the largest rebound—around 11%—due to “replacement of old PCs, servers, and storage equipment.” (Forrester)
• Software spending in the U.S. will also see a healthy gain of 10.5%, resulting from deferred license purchases from the 2009 capital freeze, continued growth in the SaaS market, and other technologies such as SOA, virtualization software, and analytics. (Forrester)
• In the U.S. IT consulting services will grow at around 7%; IT outsourcing will trail the pack, with expected growth of only 3.8%. (Forrester)
• Consumer PC spending will account for around a third of the growth in hardware spending, driven in large part by mobile PCs; an additional ten percent of the gains in hardware spending will be fueled by Windows 7 migrations. (Gartner)

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If you have IT asset management software deployed within your organization (particularly if it’s Express Software Manager!), be sure to participate in the ITAM Review’s 2010 Tools Census, an independent analysis of ITAM technologies.  It takes less than 5 minutes to complete:

Take the 2010 Tools Census Now

According to Martin Thompson, creator of the survey, “Published results will be anonymised–individual responses will be in the strictest confidence.”

You can view early results of the census here.

If you Google the term “software vendor audit,” you’ll find no shortage of information on the topic, particularly related to how to avoid and/or survive them. Frankly, though I try to stay on top of all the current research and frequently talk to customers who provide good anecdotal insight, I’ve seen very little recent material that sheds any new light on the matter.  But I confess I was taken aback by some of the information revealed in Forrester’s software licensing report, released January 4^th. 

First, Forrester reports a year-over-year increase in software audit activity during 2009.  This comes as no surprise; as software sales slumped during the economic downturn, vendors sought new ways to bolster their revenue streams; one way of doing so is to more aggressively audit their customers and force them to correct their license deficits.

What did surprise me, however, were some of the anecdotes Forrester cited in which vendors required customers to pony up, apparently in a single-minded attempt to extract extra revenue. According to Forrester, “In addition to spotting genuine under-licensing, many vendors’ audit teams seemed to want to meet their revenue targets by exploiting technicalities and loopholes.”

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I just read an interesting article by Infoworld’s Bill Snyder, examining what he describes as an inherent lack of neutrality among technology analysts that hinges on “the common practice of selling research and consulting services to the very companies whose products it evaluates.”  Snyder argues that analyst firms should be required to reveal potential conflicts of interest by disclosing their list of clients and associated spending. (This would be akin to the new regulations imposed on financial ratings agencies.) 

In the column, Snyder interviews a small company, ZL Technologies, that recently filed a lawsuit against Gartner, claiming the research firm inflicted significant economic damage by bestowing upon it the kiss of death—the lowest ranking in the “Gartner Magic Quadrant”—allegedly based on nothing more than the company’s lack of financial clout and marketing muscle. (You can read the text of the entire lawsuit here.)  Though obviously biased, it’s a fascinating read and offers a blistering indictment of a business model that has raised the ire of both vendors and end-users alike ever since research analysts first appeared on the scene. (For a good chuckle, here’s my favorite excerpt:  “At the core of this action…an economic model championed by Defendants that elevates marketing puffery over serious technology.” Wish I could claim credit for that one!)

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