EMEA Enterprise IT Spending to Rebound in 2011 with

1.3 Percent Growth After Two Consecutive Years of

Decline
Analysts Discuss the Outlook for the IT Industry during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2010,
November 8-11, in Cannes, France

Cannes, France, November 8, 2010 — Enterprise IT spending in Europe, the Middle East and
Africa (EMEA) is forecast to rebound in 2011 and reach $795.2 billion, a 1.3 percent increase
from 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. However EMEA will be the only region to show a
decline in IT spending in both 2009 and 2010, with enterprise IT spending forecast to total
$784.8 billion in 2010, a decline of 2.1 percent from 2009.

Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of research at Gartner, provided the
latest outlook for the IT industry today to an audience of 3,300 IT leaders at Gartner
Symposium/ITxpo 2010, which is taking place here through November 11.

“This decline in IT spending in 2010 is placing EMEA as the slowest region to fully
overcome the downturn,” said Mr. Sondergaard. “We expect Western Europe to record the
worst decline in EMEA in 2010 (-3.3 percent), and experience the slowest long-term growth
rate with a compound annual growth rate of 0.8 percent through 2014.”

The European sovereign debt crisis is heralding a period of austerity that is affecting the
mature economies of Western Europe. Faced with increased market scrutiny of their public
finances and hoping to avoid following in Greece’s footsteps, a number of other European
countries, most notably the U.K., have since followed suit and adopted public sector austerity
measures of their own in an effort to scale back their public deficits and debt. “We forecast
enterprise IT spending in government in EMEA to decline 2.8 percent in 2010 and total
$139.6 billion. It will exhibit slow growth through 2014 as the public sector continues to
focus on bringing budget deficits under control during the next five years,” Mr. Sondergaard
said.

Looking forward, the ongoing drop in the value of the Euro and the British pound should
promote healthy export growth in Western Europe and with it, positive economic growth.
Gartner analysts said as governments scale back their spending and social support, Western
Europe is not expected to return to stronger enterprise IT spending growth until 2012.

In 2010, the computing hardware market is the only segment to return to growth in EMEA
with hardware spending forecast to total $79.4 billion, a 4.6 percent increase from last year.
“We are seeing a rise in shipments across hardware due to the low volumes in 2009 and from
organizations gradually returning their replacement cycles to a normal length,” Mr.
Sondergaard said. Of the hardware segments, storage was the least affected in 2009 and has
the best overall outlook through to 2014, as storage capacity demands continue to grow
exponentially. Server, printer and PC revenues will each suffer from migration to lower cost
devices or configurations which will inhibit the spending outlook, particularly in Western
Europe.
The IT services market continues to struggle in EMEA and will be the slowest to return to
growth. It is forecast to decline 5.6 percent and reach $234.0 billion in 2010. Unlike in the
past where IT services spending showed relative resiliency in tight times, a risk-averse and
cost-focused mindset is today broadly persisting. While a lot of efficiency can be won through
a productive focus on controlling cost, the emerging problem is a lack of balance, which
inhibits investment in changing the business through new strategies, productivity
enhancement, and process and product innovation.

From 2012, Gartner predicts that enterprise software spending in EMEA will surpass growth
in spending on hardware, and this trend will continue through 2014 as organizations begin a
new software applications replacement cycle. In Western Europe, countries leading the
rebound, such as Germany and France, contrast sharply with those including, Greece, Italy,
Spain and Portugal still struggling with weak growth.

“This is leading to a 'polarization' of performances in the software market,” said Mr.

Sondergaard. ”The countries that are leading the recovery are being more proactive on the
software purchase front, while those that are still languishing in recession miss out on the
more innovative software investments. By 2014, this could lead to an even larger gap between
the size and growth rates of the software markets in these two different types of countries.”

In EMEA, all the verticals will continue to show decline in 2010, except for utilities.
Enterprise spending in utilities will reach $46.2 billion in 2010, a 1.9 percent increase from
2009, and is expected to exhibit the highest year-on-year growth through 2014. The utilities
industry moves to the forefront of growth based on regulatory initiatives and policy changes
that are requiring the implementation of new processes, enabling infrastructure and rich
analysis of energy information.

In 2011, only two verticals, transportation and education, will suffer further decline in EMEA.
The education market, in the face of broad multi-year budget shortfalls will cut IT spending
more deeply in order to maintain teaching staff. Transportation also remains a laggard in IT
spending growth – mixed economic indicators and the remaining specter of an economic
double dip has kept IT investments in this industry on the defensive.

A video of Mr. Sondergaard’s keynote is available at http://www.youtube.com/gartnervideo.