Tech Revolution Will Push IT Spending to $3.8 Trillion in 2014

The Digital Industrial Revolution has begun, analyst firm Gartner declares, and it will push global IT spending to $3.8 trillion in 2014.

"Every budget is an IT budget. Every company is an IT company. Every business leader is becoming a digital leader. Every person is becoming a technology company,” Gartner senior vice president said during his Monday keynote at the Gartner Symposium/IT Expo in Florida.

Among Gartner’s tech industry predictions shared at the symposium:

Internet of Things: Most every consumer good – some 30 billion within 6 years -- will be connected to the Internet, thus cementing the “connection between machines, people and business interactions.” The Internet of Things will have the total economic value of $1.9 trillion by 2020.

Smart Machines: The Digital Industrial Revolution will be led by “contextually aware, intelligent” machines, Gartner says, and the “smart machine era will blossom” into the "most disruptive in the history of IT.” In 2017, 20 percent of computers will be able to learn, Gartner predicts.

3-D Printing: Shipments of 3-D printers will increase 75 percent next year and nearly double in 2015. “The consumer market hype has made organizations aware of the fact the 3-D printing is a real, viable and cost-effective means to reduce costs through improved designs. Streamlined prototyping and short-run manufacturing,” Gartner says.

The Personal Cloud: Specific devices will become less important. “Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub,” Gartner says. The new hub will be the personal cloud, where content is stored and shared.

More on Gartner’s predictions for 2014 and beyond