Will Hardware Become Irrelevant?

In a word, no.

With software being front and center in the IT world in recent years, IDC says hardware will remain the largest spending market segment overall, accounting for roughly 40 percent of all IT expenditures.

Organizations are going to spend on hardware devices, infrastructure and telecom hardware. Telecom hardware, including smartphones, will represent more than half of all hardware spending over the next three years, while PCs will remain important.

Enterprise infrastructure spending will be driven by growth in the server and storage segments with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 3 percent for both.