Federal IT purchases to hit $33.3 billion in 2000

The federal government will spend $33.3 billion on information technology purchases in fiscal 2000, a new forecast estimates.

The Arlington, Va.-based Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) estimated that federal technology spending will grow 1 percent annually over the next five years, to $34.6 billion in fiscal 2004.

EIA's report cited several goals the government is trying to address with technology:

• Reducing total ownership cost
• Downsizing the workforce
• Dealing with the problem of information overload
• Instituting rapid and short cycle times
• Increasing security
• Improving supply chain management
• Expanding the use of digital signatures

EIA forecast total growth of 0.7 percent in civilian agencies' IT spending and 1.3 percent growth in defense IT spending over the next five years.

"The bottom line is that information technology expenditures are approximately 6 percent of the total government's discretionary budget, which is good news for the information technology industry," EIA said.