TPT November 2013

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Global Marketplace
82 November 2013
reach $12.7bn by the end of the period. Software spending
is expected to see the most significant boom, growing at a
CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 7.4 per cent to
reach $3.2bn by 2017.
The outlook is likewise positive for IT services, expected
to grow at 4.9 per cent. At a significantly below-average
rate of 0.7 per cent, the hardware sector will barely grow at
all.
In the nearer term, IDC Energy Insights (Framingham,
Massachusetts), expects IT spending by Western European
utilities of $10.4bn in 2013, with electricity companies
accounting for 67 per cent ($7bn) of such spending.
The major portion (62.9 per cent) of the overall total will be
dedicated to IT services.
According to Gaia Gallotti, research manager for the market
intelligence and advisory firm, Western European utilities
are “more than ever” striving to make the most of every
dollar spent to achieve operational excellence and reduce
inefficiencies.
However, she wrote, “The need to comply with energy policies
and regulation will continue to drive ICT (information and
communications technology) investments, translating into an
estimated total Western European utilities’ 2012–2017 CAGR
of 4.9 per cent.”
Perceiving ‘an existential threat’,
US utility companies join forces
against a tiny rival: rooftop solar
electricity
“We have found an amicable solution that will result in a
new equilibrium on the European solar panel market at a
sustainable price level.” The solution, announced by Karel
De Gucht, the European trade commissioner, would settle
a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels from China.
The deal announced in Brussels on 27 July will require
some implementing. Fiercely criticised by the European
manufacturers that had filed the complaint against the
Chinese exporters, it also complicates a similar dispute
between the US and China. But Mr De Gucht’s news averted
the immediate threat of a wider trade war between two of the
world’s largest economies.
It remains to be seen whether a smaller-scale but quite as
acrimonious dispute over solar panels, brewing in the US,
has a chance of even a stopgap resolution. Diane Cardwell
summarised the situation in the International Herald Tribune:
For years, power companies have watched warily as solar
panels have sprouted across the nation’s rooftops. Now,
they are fighting hard to slow the spread. Ms Cardwell wrote,
“Alarmed by what they say has become an existential threat
to their business, utility companies are moving to roll back