Worldwide and U.S. IS Outsourcing Services 2009-2013 Forecast Update: November 2009

This IDC Forecast Update presents an updated five-year forecast for the worldwide and U.S. IS outsourcing services market. It updates the previous IS outsourcing forecast published in Worldwide and U.S. IS Outsourcing Services 2009-2013 Forecast (IDC #217341, March 2009).

IS outsourcing services involve a long-term contractual arrangement in which a service provider takes ownership of and responsibility for managing all or part of a client's information systems infrastructure and operations. These are broad engagements that typically include responsibility for the systems, networks, applications, datacenters, and access devices (e.g., laptops, PDAs, desktops). Please note that IS outsourcing spending figures do not include spending on processing services, business process outsourcing, or other discrete services including application management, network and desktop outsourcing, managed Web hosting, and software as a service (SaaS). This document is based on information received by IDC as of September 2009.

Additionally, IDC classifies IS outsourcing as a subset of IT outsourcing. IT outsourcing comprises the following markets:

• IS outsourcing
• Network and desktop outsourcing
• Application outsourcing
• Hosted application management (HAM)
• Managed Web hosting
• Cloud/utility computing
• Software as a service