Summary: Technology will be embedded everywhere and disrupt traditional IT and the vendors and ecosystem that goes with it.

ORLANDO—Global technology spending will surpass the $4 trillion mark in 2016 and digitization of industries will ultimately force a rethink on what is IT overall, according to Gartner.

In other words, the technology pie is going to get a lot larger, but murkier.

The big theme: Cloud, mobile, social and big data will come together to create a technology boom with a bevy of challenges and disruption ahead.

“Every budget is an IT budget,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president of research at Gartner. “Technology is embedded in every product.”

His point: More technology spending will occur outside traditional procurement methods. Consumers will spend more disposable income on technologies. Industries traditionally thought to be non-tech will be digitized. And technology will be embedded into everything.

There will be chief digital officers in most companies. By 2015, 25 percent of companies will have a chief digital officer. The role: Digitize the business.

Gartner’s theme at its Symposium CIO powwow is that there’s a nexus of technologies that will revamp corporate technology, vendors and employment. Nexus is a word that will be beaten to death at this annual CIO leadership therapy session. The forces inside this nexus are all interdependent.

Some takeaways to ponder from Sondergaard’s talk:

  • Big data is the killer application of the cloud.
  • The cost savings of cloud haven’t been realized—subscriptions have trumped pay as you go.
  • 80 percent of businesses are using SaaS.
  • IT departments mostly use private clouds.
  • Two versions of cloud are emerging—IT’s and everyone else.
  • Business process services in the cloud will be a $145 billion market in 2016, doubling from today.
  • Cloud will develop and transform with or without IT’s support.
  • It’s the end of the beginning for corporate IT.
  • Corporate IT needs to think mobile first in all designs.
  • Big software vendors won’t be able to think mobile first.
  • There will be more iPads in the enterprise than BlackBerries in two years.
  • Enterprises will have to spend time monitoring physical assets and the data they spew.
  • Social computing will become more important.
  • 10 organizations in the U.S. will each spend more than $1 billion on social media in 2016.
  • Automated and paid reviews will be common nefarious uses of social media.
  • Continual stream of information will transform decision-making and industries.
  • 85 percent of marketing organizations will outsource the analysis of big data.
  • Companies will be judged based on the quality of their algorithms.
  • CIOs will have to find new workers to do the big data jobs required.
  • CIOs will have to think like entrepreneurs.

And the effects of this disruption:

  • Consumers will spend more disposable income on technology spending. Consumer tech spending was 3% of disposable income in 2011. By 2015 will be 3.5 percent of spending.
  • Security infrastructure will have to be rethought completely because it could hinder progress.
  • Social and reputation wars will become an issue just like malware.
  • The IT market will change. The large IT megavendors are being challenged by at least one of the forces in the nexus. “Are your vendors accelerating your march into the future or putting the brakes on your progress?” asked Sondergaard.
  • Spending on technology outside the IT market will surpass levels inside.
  • 1.9 million IT jobs will be created in the U.S.
  • 6 million jobs in the U.S. created by information economy over the next 4 years.
  • There isn’t enough talent to fill those jobs.