Speaking at the Gartner Tech Investor Summit in New York last
week, Al Lill, group vice president of the company said, "We are
now seeing a true recovery in the making".
"There is a key combination of technology advances,
architectural changes, market forces and best practices in place to
lead a good recovery for IT in the near future and culminating in
very strong growth in the longer term," he continued.
According to Gartner, the recovery will be accompanied by a
tremendous skills shift within the IT workforce, impacting hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, of workers.
Areas in which skills will be most highly valued include
broadband, wireless, Linux, content management, real-time
analytics, data mining, security, middleware, certification skills,
business intelligence and knowledge management.
Gartner analysts also warned of a massive vendor consolidation
cycle that will remove over 50% of existing technology suppliers by
the end of 2005. As a result, sellers will regain pricing power in
several technology sectors.
"Real productivity gains will be achieved through the
replacement or greatly diminished role of entire industries," Lill
said. "For example, the combination of secure broadband wireless,
very low-power consumption mobile electronics and new display
technologies will have stunning consequences for the publishing,
media and advertising industries, to name a few."
