IDC believes that the IT spending of education institutions will grow from $9 billion in 2005 to $11 billion in 2010; however growth will be below other public sector industries.

In this study IDC provides an overview of IT spending trends and forecasts in the Western European education sector. On the qualitative side the study analyzes IT adoption trends in the sector and describes major drivers and inhibitors of IT adoption. On the quantitative side, focus is on spending in hardware, packaged software, and IT services for the major European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.) in the 2005-2010 timeframe; IT spending is provided for two sub-industries: primary and secondary education (NACE 80.1 and 80.2) and higher and other education (NACE 80.3 and 80.4). Compared to the previous forecast, published in December 2005 (see Western Europe, Education Sector, IT Spending Update, 2004-2009, Doc #MS54M, November 2005), this study also includes a further breakdown of "primary and secondary education" in preprimary and primary (NACE 80.1) and secondary general and vocational education (NACE 80.2). This breakdown is presented for total Western Europe.

"IT vendors that want to get a share of this market should target the healthiest countries, such as the U.K. and Spain. Hardware vendors must address infrastructure upgrade plans. Global software and IT services vendors must focus primarily on higher education," said Massimiliano Claps, program manager, Public Sector, IDC European Vertical Markets.