Global IT spending is set to total $3.74 trillion in 2019, Gartner reports-- a 0.6% increase from 2018, but a decline of the analyst's forecast of 1.1% growth from the previous quarter.

“Despite uncertainty fueled by recession rumours, Brexit, trade wars and tariffs, we expect IT spending to remain flat in 2019,” Gartner says. “While there is great variation in growth rates at the country level, virtually all countries tracked by Gartner will see growth in 2019. Despite the ongoing tariff war, N. America IT spending is forecast to grow 3.7% in 2019 and IT spending in China is expected to grow 2.8%.”

However, while the outlook is overall positive, Gartner still warns the the risk of economic downturn is high enough to warrant at least some preparation and planning. Thus, general and product managers should plan out product mix and operational models to optimally position product portfolios in case a downturn actually happens.

According to IDC, European spending on customer experience (CX) totals $97 billion in 2018 before reaching $128bn by 2022 with a "healthy" 7% 5-year CAGR, with banking, retail and discrete manufacturing driving spending throughout the forecast period.

The top 3 verticals are set to absorb 33% of European CX spend in 2019, and retail is to have the fastest growing spend on CX throughout 2022, outgrowing banking by 2021.

The current use cases with the highest spending in CX are customer care and support, digital marketing and order fulfillment. Investment in CX represents an opportunity for industries to differentiate, implementing use cases to mold a public brand perception around the customer, improving websites, social media interactions and product and service promotions.

The finalised PCIe 5.0 specification might be less than a month old, but the PCI-SIG already has plans for the next version of the technology-- PCIe 6.0, an update doubling the bandwidth to 64 GT/s while maintaining backwards compatibility.

In total, PCIe 6.0 promises data rates of up to 256GB/s in a x16 configuration. It uses PAM-4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels) encoding and leverages existing 56G PAM-4, and includes low-latency Forward Error Correction (FEC) with additional mechanisms to improve bandwidth efficiency. As mentioned earlier, PCIe 6.0 also aims to maintain backwards compatibility with all previous PCIe generations.

While interest in the blockchain remains at a high, there is still "significant" gap between the hype and market reality, Gartner reports-- in fact, the analyst says just 11% of CIOs have deployed or are in short-term planning with blockchain.

The findings come from the Gartner 2019 CIO Agenda Survey of over 3000 CIOs in 89 countries and all major industries.

“Blockchain is currently sliding down toward the Trough of Disillusionment in Gartner’s latest "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies,"” the analyst continues. “The blockchain platforms and technologies market is still nascent and there is no industry consensus on key components such as product concept, feature set and core application requirements. We do not expect that there will be a single dominant platform within the next 5 years.”