Gartner

Gartner released a new forecast that predicts the information technology spending to grow faster this year than previously expected. The growth will be boosted by strong demand for new telecom gear and for computing hardware, research firm Gartner said.

The research agency believes that the global IT market will growth by 7.1% this year to $3.672 trillion. It had earlier forecast 5.6 percent growth this year.

According to the forecast made by the research company Gartner 20% of workers will be using social networks as their primary option for business communications by 2014. Gartner says that greater availability of social networking services, along with changing demographics and work styles, are responsible for the business move toward social networking services. And as more workers with social networking skills enter businesses the conventional business tool – email – will be greatly impacted by social media.

As reflected the latest research from IDC, global PC sales are expected to face nearly 20% growth this year.

As the research firm found, worldwide PC shipments in the first three months of the year were 27.1% higher than in the first quarter of 2009. So the company expects further growth nearing to 20% compared to 2009.

As IDC noted an easing of economic troubles together with renewed consumer and corporate buying is giving the PC industry a much-needed boost.

According to the research from Gartner, Google's Android grabbed the fourth place in the first quarter in the number of smartphones sold which use it. Android thus overtook Microsoft's Windows Mobile leaving Google well placed amid the increasing popularity of mobile browsing as handsets look set to soon surpass computers for accessing the web.

According to US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data, small businesses computer scam made up $25 million in the third quarter of 2009.

Online banking fraud involving the electronic transfer of funds has been increasing since 2007 and reached the volume of over $120 million in the third quarter of 2009, according to estimates presented Friday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, by David Nelson, an examination specialist with the FDIC.

According to a new report from Gartner, global mobile phone sales reached 308.9 million units in the third quarter of 2009, a slight increase of 0.1 percent from the third quarter of 2008.
Smartphone sales showed solid growth with more than 41 million units sold for a 12.8 percent increase from the same period last year.

Gartner, a market research firm, conducted a survey showed money transfers and payments over mobile phones will be among the top 10 most important mobile applications by 2012. Mobile money transfers pass ahead location-based services, search and browsing, taking the first line in the list. Sandy Shen, research director in Gartner's Mobile Devices and Consumer Services group forecasts that money transfers will attract more users becoming more popular both in developed and developing countries.

 A study provided by Gartner shows that while there are some sectors in technology industry improving since the worst in a decade recession burst out the damage caused by the economic turmoil may be felt for a few years.

In its report Gartner said that majority of the electronics industries like the consumer, wireless and semiconductor sectors are awaiting the first signs of recovery. However the stability of product demand and effectiveness of government stimulus packages still remains uncertain.