Gartner- one fifth of companies to ditch IT infrastructure

One in five businesses will move to scrap their IT infrastructure in 2010, a market expert has predicted.

Steve Prentice, vice-president of Gartner, explained that the move will not involve "large businesses with data centres, but small and medium companies and start-ups. Why build a data centre when you could have access to someone else's?"

According to the analyst firm, social computing and cloud computing will be major issues for chief operating officers in 2010, as companies are likely to hand over control over parts of their IT estate amid emerging trends.

Mr Prentice said that technology "is not the silver bullet" that will bring Britain out of the financial turmoil, but added that the sector will carry on prospering in 2010 as long as it focuses on what clients want from IT.

In other news, cloud computing allows companies to keep operating despite severe weather conditions, according to Rob Lovell, chief executive at cloud computing platform provider ThinkGrid.

"It's very important for businesses to think about how they react to such things happening," he said.

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