IDC expects the US professional services industry to surpass the discrete manufacturing sector as the largest overall consumer of storage and server technology by 2009, both in terms of dollars spent and spending growth rate. As a whole, the US server market is estimated to reach $23.9 bln by 2009, with a 4.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next 5 years, while spending on external storage systems within the US will grow to $7.6 bln by 2009 with a 6.48% CAGR over the forecast period. Driven by extensive infrastructure needs, hosted services, and application development in 2004, the professional services industry spent over $590 mln on storage systems, and accounted for 13.5% of server sales within the United States. Professional services will continue to represent an attractive opportunity for server vendors due to its consistently high consumption of enterprise server equipment.