IDC forecasts that the small and medium-sized business (SMB) enterprise applications market will grow to $80.3 bln by the end of 2012, representing a 10.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2008-2012 period.

IDC predicts that the year 2008 will close with total spending on hardware, software, and services in Brazil at $23 bln, nearly equal to the $24 bln expected in the Spanish market. Northeast region of Brazil is the fastest growing region for IT investment in Brazil even though it is not among the top 3 regions in the country. IT investments by companies in this region are accelerating at an impressive rate and at a higher growth rate than any other region. The Northeast accounts for 11% of total IT spending in Brazil now, or $2.5 bln. All IT spending in Brazil this year, 33% will be in the hands of corporations with more than 500 employees. At the same time, small companies, which have been investing steadily in technology over the past several years, will account for 13% of total IT investment in the country.

Overall global consumer spending both online and by mobile phones is expected to grow 21.8% annually, to $234 bln by 2012, according to Pricewaterhouse. By contrast, spending in the United States will grow at a rate of 16.1%, to $75 bln.

IDC expects worldwide revenue from open source software to grow at a 23% CAGR to reach $4.83 bln by 2012. Worldwide revenue from standalone OSS in 2007 was $1.73 bln.

70% of foreign scientists and engineers who received PhD’s from US universities remained in the country after receiving their degree. US accounts for 40% of all scientific R&D spending in the world, employs 70% of the world’s Nobel Prize winners and houses 75% of the world’s top 40 universities, Rand said.

$764 million in 2008 and growing at a 43% compound annual growth rate to reach $4.6 billion globally in 2013, according to Forrester Research. Some 56% of North American and European enterprises (firms with 1,000 or more employees) consider Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008 according to another recent Forrester survey; more than half are buying or considering Web 2.0 technologies.

Enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies will surge over the next 5 years, growing 43% each year to reach $4.6 bln globally by 2013, according to Forrester Research. 56% of North American and European enterprises consider Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008.

Global enterprise IT budget growth remains unchanged at 3.3% in 2008, according to Gartner. While 62% of CIOs reported no change in their 2008 IT budgets, 23% indicated a decline in their budgets, and 15% of respondents reported an increase in their budgets. Of those respondents reporting a decline in budget, the decrease averaged at 10% in their committed 2008 budget. For those respondents that reported an increase in their budget, they said the increase was approximately 15%. Overall US IT budgets for 2008 are expected to grow, but the growth rate has slowed from 3.1% to an increase of 2.3%. 25% of US CIOs indicate that their IT budgets were reduced in Q1 2008, 65% were unchanged and 10% reported budget increases in Q1 2008.

Pearl Research estimates that as much as 75% of the $1.7 bln Chinese gaming market is built on virtual item sales.

ZenithOptimedia expects US online ad spending to grow 23.4% in 2008. Global ad spend for online will rise 26.5% in 2008 to $47.7 bln.

Small and medium businesses in Pakistan invested more than $1.5 bln on ICT (info-communications technology) in 2007, AMI Partners said. Only 14% of SBs in Pakistan have adopted computers at present.

Among US small and medium businesses , SaaS adoption is rising steadily, AMI Partners says. 21% and 31% of SBs and MBs currently use SaaS solutions, which is double the share of adoption in 2004.

US-based businesses accounted for 33.5% of total patents filed internationally in 2007, World Intellectual Property Organization said. US companies filed 156,100 international patent applications. The total number of patents filed worldwide was up by 4.7% over 2006.

2008 will be a difficult year for TV advertising, with spend growing at a lower rate than the economy: that is, just 1.9% in Europe and 1.5% in the US, according to ScreenDigest. Advertising revenues will grow below average GDP growth between 2008-2012, with annual growth rates of 3.6% in Europe and 3.7% in the US. The growth rate in 2011-2012 will be higher - at 5% in Europe and 6% in the US - as the economy picks up after 2008/2009. Most of that growth will come from online advertising, which is expected to grow on average 17% every year until 2012.

According to Digital Entertainment Group, Americans spent $1.4 bln renting DVDs in 2001; that grew to $7.5 bln in 2006.

Norwegian IT services market was worth NOK 10.9 bln in Q1-Q2 2007, representing growth of 7% over Q1-Q2 2006. The forecast for 2006 to 2011 has been downgraded from 5.6% to 5.4%, according to IDC.

POS Terminals running Microsoft Windows OS drove $3.8 bln of the $5.56 bln North American Retail POS Terminal Market in 2007, according to IHL Group. IBM 4690 terminals generated $1.02 bln and Linux-based machines $475 mln, with DOS and other operating systems being installed on the remainder of units. Overall shipments increased 5% in 2006, with Specialty Stores, Quick Service/Fast Food Restaurants and Supercenters providing the greatest growth and Department Stores showing the only negative growth for the year.

In 2007 commercial and nonprofit marketers spent $173.2 bln on direct marketing in US, according to Direct Marketing Association. Measured against total US sales, these advertising expenditures generated approximately $2.025 trln in incremental sales. In 2007, direct marketing accounted for 10.2% of total US gross domestic product. Also in 2007, there were 1.6 million direct marketing employees in the US. Their collective sales efforts directly supported nearly 9.0 mln other jobs, accounting for a total of 10.6 mln US jobs.

Albanian IT market reached nearly $44 mln in 2006, up an estimated 18% over 2005. IT market to expand by 17.8% annually on average to total almost $100 million in 2011, according to IDC. Albanian IT market is heavily oriented towards hardware, which constituted over 71% of total IT spending in 2006. IT services represented just over 16% of the market, and software represented 12.6%.

37.6% of senior marketers say annual budgets will not change in 2008, while 33.1% expect to increase spend by up to 5%, and almost 10% say their budgets will grow between 6 and 10%, according to IDC. Only 7.6% expect to see budget increases greater than 11%. In 2007, the majority of global marketers (52.6%) had budgets that equaled less than 4% of revenue and 35.4% said their spend was between four and 10% of revenue.

Large majorities of the public in Great Britain (61%), Italy (57%), France (55%), the United States (54%), and Spain (54%) believe the economy in their respective countries will be worse in 2008 than it was in 2007. Germany is the country where attitudes are slightly different as just one-third (33%) believe their economy will be worse while just under half (47%) believe it will be neither better nor worse. Pluralities of adults in Italy (44%), Great Britain (43%) and the US (41%) believe their personal finances will neither improve nor worsen in 2008. Germans are slightly more likely to believe their personal finances will neither improve nor worsen than they are to believe their finances will get worse in 2008 (38% compared to 36%), while Spaniards are equally divided (38%). France is the only country where a plurality believes their personal finances will worsen (42%), Harris Poll says.

Swedish IT services market was worth SEK 24.6 bln in Q1-Q2 2007 representing growth of 6.3% over Q1-Q2 2006. The forecast for 2006 to 2011 has been downgraded from 4.6% to 4.4%, according to IDC.

France SMBs remain the third IT and telecom market after Germany and the United Kingdom, accounting for approximately 16% of all dollars spent in the region. SMBs in France closed the year by spending approximately $34 bln to beef up their IT and telecom infrastructure and applications, up 5% over 2006, AMI Partners said.

Small and medium businesses across key countries in ASEAN (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines), are set to spend $13.4 bln on IT in 2008, up 15% over 2007. Computing spending will account for just over 50% of total IT spending in ASEAN. Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand will drive approximately 67% of the spending. As for MBs (medium businesses, or companies with 100-999 employees), about 40% of IT spending will be on computing hardware in 2008. The bulk of IT spending will continue to be on basic infrastructure. However, IT services, Internet and storage will make up another 42% of MB IT spending in the ASEAN countries in 2008, AMI Partners reports.

France SMBs remain the third IT and telecom market after Germany and the United Kingdom, accounting for approximately 16% of all dollars spent in the region. SMBs in France closed the year by spending approximately $34 bln to beef up their IT and telecom infrastructure and applications, up 5% over 2006, AMI Partners said.