Netbooks, cloud to be winners this year: IDC

IDC top 10 predictions

1. Australia's economic growth rate to slow to 2.6 per cent as sales of PCs and peripherals decline. But the services market equals better ongoing revenues for the channel.

2. Governments will boost spending to stimulate demand and even if that isn't aimed at IT, the technology industries will benefit strongly from a flow-on effect. But as the state enters the market vacated by private enterprise, it will demand more value from suppliers and margins will suffer.

3. Cloud computing will gain popularity as buyers look for cheaper, better, faster ways to compute. More than half the respondents to an IDC survey are using or evaluating cloud services.

4. Companies look to social media to influence buyers and keep customers.

5. Green IT will grow in importance.

6. Managed data services and data centres will be revisited as organisations prepare for a sustained downturn.

7. Thin clients will again be the flavour of the day. Sales will grow as fleets of old PCs are retired next year.

8. Deregulation is so 1990s. Governments are flexing atrophied muscles and enforcing their views -- backed by taxpayer dollars -- on the channel and industry players such as telcos rolling out broadband networks.

9. Vendors and suppliers with cash war chests will thrive as flexible prices become the norm.

10. Netbooks bundled with mobile phone service plans will change how portable and desktop PCs are sold and will re-route the circuitry of the channel.