The OECD Information Technology Outlook 2010 has been prepared by the OECD under the guidance of the OECD Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP), and in particular the Working Party on the Information Economy. This edition is the tenth in a biennial series designed to provide members with a broad overview of trends and near-term prospects in the information technology (IT) industry, analysis of the growing impact of IT on the economy and society, developments and emerging applications in selected areas of information technology and a review of IT policies and new policy directions. The 2010 edition builds on previous editions to further extend the economic and policy analysis. This edition has focused extensively on the economic crisis and recovery and their impacts on the ICT supply side.

The first two chapters provide an overview of the importance and growth of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in national economies, describe recent market dynamics, give a detailed overview of the globalisation of the ICT sector and provide a thorough analysis of the ongoing shift of production, trade and markets to non-OECD economies, particularly China and India. The third chapter provides an overview of the importance of ICT employment, how this is changing, the extent to which it is recovering following the crisis and analysis of new sources of ICT-related jobs, for example in “green” ICT-related activities. Some of the recent changes on the demand side and use side including e-commerce and digital content are analysed in the following chapter, along with a brief overview of the evolution of R&D. The following two chapters are devoted to the relations between ICTs and the environment, first looking at direct, enabling and systemic impacts of ICTs on the environment, followed by a chapter on the impacts of sensors and sensor networks. The last chapter provides a critical overview of IT policy developments and priorities in OECD countries and looks at the changes in these policies over time and following the crisis. National information technology policy profiles are also posted on the OECD website to enable their widespread use (www.oecd.org/sti/information-economy).

The OECD Information Technology Outlook 2010 was drafted under the direction of Graham Vickery, with Cristina Serra Vallejo, Arthur Mickoleit and Christian Reimsbach Kounatze of the OECD’s Information, Computer and Communications Policy Division, and with contributions from Sacha Wunsch-Vincent. It benefited from review and valuable contributions from delegates to the ICCP Committee’s Working Party on the Information Economy, chaired by Daniela Battisti (Italy), particularly regarding national IT policy developments and up-to-date national statistics on the production and use of IT goods and services. This report has been recommended for wider distribution by the ICCP Committee.