IDC recently predicted that cloud computing would account for 9 or 10 percent of IT spending by 2012, up from the 4 percent allocated in 2008. "That's a conservative forecast made before the Dow tanked," Gens commented last week. "So that's going to accelerate cloud offerings from the big vendors," he added.

His comments, reported in a recent article, indicated that IDC sees many companies moving to the cloud.

They'll do so, Gens believes, even if that means circumventing the IT department to get what they need - so as to obtain business solutions as sales-force automation, productivity, and marketing campaign oftware.

Gens added:

"The more pure IT stuff - infrastructure, infrastructure software, application development - those are tech buyers, so there are fewer potential customers."

As IDC's Senior Vice President & Chief Analyst, he guides IDC's research into broad IT industry trends, particularly the strategic adoption of technology by Global 2000 businesses and the industries in which they compete.