In the passing tough year best remembered for crisis, loss of jobs, and overall uncertainty, the outsourcing industry has made many gloomy headlines in the news resources. Interesting enough to note that the end of the year brings forecasts for the IT community as optimistic as long not heard. After the brutal 2009, we’re glad to receive some encouraging news again. With the leading and most trusted Forrester and Gartner at the front of the line, most other analyst houses and industry associations including IDC, IAOP, NOA echo with optimistic releases. Rejoice, IT! We’ve made it through!

The Forrester’s loud statement “Tech downturn officially over” gave way to numerous sequential prognostications the quintessence of which sounds as follows: IT spending is set to grow in the coming year. Below we’ve summarized the key findings from leading analyst firms with most significant predictions and relevant figures for 2010.

The analyst guru Forrester predicts that spending in the IT industry will rise 8.1% to more than $1.6 trillion, driven by an improvement in the wider economic situation and a new cycle of tech innovation and growth. “2010 will be a much better year. […] We’re not talking boom yet, so we are not predicting double-digit growth rates across the tech market,” said the Forrester report’s author Andrew Bartels. “But, as our latest tech market report shows we do think there will be a solid tech recovery in 2010, with growth rates in the high single digits.”

Bartels also said that he expects big businesses will lead the IT spending, rather than SMBs. “For large corporations, the financial crisis is mostly over – they can tap the corporate bond, commercial paper, and equity markets as they did before. But SMBs depend on banks for financing, and banks are still making it hard to borrow.”

Forrester is expecting that spending on computer hardware and software will lead the way in 2010, with hardware spending up 8.2 percent and software spending up 9.7 percent. Communications equipment makers will see an increase in spending of 7.6 percent, IT consulting and system integration services will rise by 6.8 percent, and outsourcing services will exhibit 7.1 percent growth.