Celtic tiger Ireland
refuses to lose its bite
by Paul Golden and John Garratt
Previously termed the “Celtic tiger” with its dramatic
growth in attracting inbound investment, boosting
jobs and building on its technology skills-base,
Ireland seems to have quietened down. Cautious
optimism is now the mantra for the Irish IT sector in
2008. With the economic slowdown leaving finances
tighter than at any time in the last decade, customers
are more focused than ever on the bottom line, but
appear willing to spend where a compelling case for
investment can be made.…
he fourth annual iReach TeleTech survey forecasts overall market – with
T
growth of 3.5% in 2008, a marginal slowdown over 2007 levels, with security
total IT expenditure reaching €2.5bn. The key changes from 2007 solutions likely to account for €100m of that.
are a slowdown in hardware growth, increased spending on business process The 2007 edition of IDC’s IT Trends and Expenditure in Ireland also reported
outsourcing and continued strong growth in managed services. In the software overall growth in IT spending. Interest in services aimed at protecting IT
space, security continues to grow strongly with enterprise software spend systems, such as security services and business continuity/disaster recovery
growing for the first time in three years. services remains strong, although there is less enthusiasm for external IT
“We are seeing a constant improvement in the alignment of IT with services.
business drivers and this shift has had a significant impact on annual spending Software expenditure showed the biggest change since last year, with 35%
patterns since 1999,” said Neil Brennan, ICT research analyst. “No longer do we more organisations expecting their software spend to rise in 2007 than those
see investment spikes or significant annual shifts in IT or telecoms spend.” who expect it to fall. There was a discernible positive trend towards managed
His prediction for increased investment in software in 2008 is based on services, whereas the outlook for one-off services such as consulting was more
an increased focus on enterprise software and continued growth in software negative.
infrastructure and security software. Expenditure levels are expected to return The proportion of organisations spending more on IT in 2007 was (at 54%)
to 2004 levels at €440m – an increase of 6% over the previous 12 months higher than in 2006 (48%). Financial services firms were the biggest spenders,
18 29 Feb 2008
It0804 - 18-21_ent_ireland.indd 18 27/02/2008 10:25:37
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32