The IT services market suffered its first decline last
year, despite record interest in outsourcing, according to
Gartner.Preliminary results from Gartner show that
global end-user spending on IT services in 2002 totalled $536bn
(£333bn), a 0.6% decline from 2001.
"Project-based services, consulting and
development and integration, performed the worst, while managed
services, such as outsourcing and process management, enjoyed the
highest growth rate," said Kathryn Hale, principal analyst for
Gartner's worldwide IT services group.
"Many organisations are still seeing
outsourcing as the best way to minimise costs in an economy of
prolonged uncertainty in which very tight budgets are the norm.
Project-based services suffered because users
avoided large or technologically challenging projects, and because
of price pressure on commodity-like work, which was further driven
by growth in offshore services."
IBM remained number one with 7.5% of worldwide
IT services revenue in 2002, though the poor performance of PwC
Consulting, which it acquired in 2002, hit its growth rate.
EDS ranked second, posting 3.9% growth,
followed by Fujitsu. Hewlett-Packard joined Gartner's top-five
suppliers as the company's revenue roughly doubled when it merged
with Compaq.
IT services revenue for western Europe slipped
0.1%, compared with a 1.1% decline in North America.