Adoption of managed cloud services driving global IT market growth

As a rapidly increasing number of organizations adopt managed cloud services, the IT market is expected to continue its growth in the new year, according to a recent Forrester Research study.

According to the study, the global IT market will expand by approximately 7.1 percent in 2011. Growth for 2010 is estimated at approximately 7.2 percent.

Though growth patterns are largely expected to remain similar in the new year, there are several points of difference between 2010 trends and those anticipated for 2011, according to Forrester.

One such difference is the proportion of IT market growth in the hardware sector. According to Forrester, the equipment sector grew approximately 11 percent in 2010. This, however, may have been influenced by hardware purchases deferred from previous years because of the global economic recession.

Software expenses, including the growing managed cloud services industry, will likely account for a greater percentage of IT market growth in 2011, according to Forrester.

The cloud services industry continues to grow rapidly. According to a recent 451 Market Monitor report, cloud computing revenues are predicted to reach $16.7 billion by 2015.