Gartner has moved to drop its global IT spending forecast for 2010 on the back of currency fluctuations resulting from the current European debt crisis. Global IT spending was revised to 3.9 percent over that of 2009, down from an initial projection of 5.3 percent growth. This effectively pegs global spending on IT at US$3.35 trillion, over last year's total IT spending of US$3.225 trillion.

Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner, confirmed the European factor in its revised IT spending outlook in a statement, "The U.S. dollar has strengthened against the euro during the second quarter of 2010, and this trend will likely continue in the second half of 2010, which will put downward pressure on U.S.-dollar-denominated IT spending growth."

Interestingly, the spending on computing hardware is projected by Gartner's forecast to grow by 9.1 percent, outstripping other major components like software, IT services or telecom.

This is probably the result of the knee-jerk reduction last year as companies held out on purchasing new hardware in the midst of the financial crisis.  In fact, the same component saw a major dip of some 12.4 percentage points last year--more than the other aspects of IT spending. Ultimately, Gartner predicts that IT spending will be curtailed in Europe over the next five years as governments continue to rein in budget deficits.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Businessweek
- check out this article at CNET News 

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