By Mark Ballard: Wednesday, 14 May 2008, 2:17 PM BEREFT OF ANY EVIDENCE to challenge the UK's official opposition to the sale of its latest software in education, Microsoft has decided to shore up its reputation with a good old fashioned piece of...

The European market for IT, telecommunications and digital consumer electronics (ICT) is expected to increase by three percent to 761 billion Euro in 2008. This is the latest forecast of the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO) presented in Brussels last week.

“The high-tech industry is again achieving a considerable plus on an already high level”, said EITO chair Bruno Lamborghini. “Based on solid growth in the European market and their enormous potential in know-how, European companies are well positioned to excel in global competition.”

EU Commissioner Viviane Reding gave the keynote in the official opening of the new EITO online database. She said in her address: “EITO has become a principal source of statistics on the ICT sector. This high quality information is important not just for tracking the ICT sector itself, but because the ICT industry is the motor of the advanced economy, representing 6 per cent of total gross domestic product in itself but driving fully 20 per cent of overall productivity growth.” Graham Vickery, head of the OECD’s Information Economy Group and Jaime Smith Basterra, BITKOM board member and board member of Telefónica O2 Europe also contributed to the event.

This year, of the large European markets, Spain, with 4.6 percent and France with 3.2 percent are showing the strongest growth. In value terms, the leader is the...
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