IT Management Slideshow: Gartner IT Outlook 2014: Focus on Information Intelligence

While worldwide enterprise IT spending will grow over the next several years, the "happy times" of the pre-recession era won't return anytime soon. Instead, Gartner Inc. is projecting a slow-growth period that may very well last into the year 2014. Even so, the research firm predicts that some areas of IT that will see considerable investment in that period. The use of cloud computing, social media as business tools and what's called "context-aware computing" will all be areas of increased focus during this period, Gartner predicts. And CIOs who succeed will understand that it's the consumer who will drive technology - versus technology driving the consumer. This dynamic should be a game-definer for decades, as opposed to the next couple years. "At the heart of the change, the next 20 years will be intelligence drawn from information," says Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of research. "Information will be the 'oil of the 21st century.' It will be the resource running our economy in ways not possible in the past." Gartner's presentations on tech trends are available via Webcast here. These are highlights from the IT spending forecast: