MT (sorry, Tip, for cluttering your inbox),
another PC market article, again from the Dell thread ...
[no link provided]
February 01, 1999
U.S. IT Market Continues to Grow in '99
By Nancy Weil
BOSTON Continued growth is expected across the board in the U.S. IT
market this year, with the markets for PCs, servers, services and online
products likely to continue growing throughout 1999.
Information technology directors are expected to guard resources in the
coming months, relying on equipment and software that their departments
already have and holding off on buying anything new for a time, said
Scott Miller, a senior analyst at San Jose, Calif.-based Dataquest. The
hesitance to buy has more to do with product cycles than economic
concerns, however, and is not considered the precursor to a major
downturn, Miller said.
Spending on PCs in the U.S. will jump to $71.56 billion in 1999,
compared to $67.9 billion expected this year, Dataquest forecasted.
Updated mobile software and the arrival of the Windows 2000 operating
system are likely to spur an upgrade cycle in the second half of 2000,
with Dataquest predicting that PC spending will reach $78.9 bilion in
2000 and $89.9 billion a year later.
In the computer systems and servers market segment, Dataquest forecasted
U.S. spending will hit $18.5 billion this year, rise slightly to $19.27
billion next year and stay relatively flat through 2000, when Dataquest
predicts sales will reach $19.67 billion.
Consultants will continue to be in demand, with $14.47 billion in U.S.
sales this year, expected to reach $16.99 billion next year, $19.7
billion in 2000 and $23.0 billion in 2001.
Online services also will show steady, if undramatic, growth. Dataquest
measures online service figures for all of North America and expects
that market to be $7.8 billion this year in North America, $9.88 billion
next year, $11.97 billion in 2000 and $14.35 billion in 2001.
As far as PCs go, prices are stabilizing for commercial desktop machines
as companies move to standardize across the enterprise, Miller said. But
the corporate market is saturated the only way to push growth is to
boost the replacement cycle, he added. And one way to accomplish that is
through price cuts, which are a necessity when prices drop as they have
in the consumer market. Another option for speeding replacements is to
offer corporate users something different from what is available
commercially, Miller added.
For resellers and distributors, the key to keeping business rolling in
is basic. "They need to spin the installed base faster plain and
simple," Miller said. "If you can do that, you win." |
