This IDC study, with our broadest outlook for the overall technology marketplace, starts IDC's annual "predictions season." In 2009, the IT market as a whole will be shaped by two major forces colliding with each other as a deep global recession meets an ongoing IT industry transformation. The recession will have a huge impact on the market, cutting worldwide IT spending growth in half. But in 2009, there will also be a second powerful force at work: the ongoing, radical transformation of the IT industry.

According to IDC Chief Analyst Frank Gens, "In 2009, the big question will be: What will happen as the industry's key transformation vectors of the past several years — like cloud computing, mobility, sustainable IT, and emerging markets expansion — meet the recession, and a market in which IT investments will surely be more limited and more highly scrutinized? The answers found in this year's IDC Top 10 Predictions document may surprise."