Information Age: News, analysis & insight for IT & business leaders

The IT industry continued its uninterrupted return to rude health in May, recording growth of 12.1% at a global level, up from 11.5% in April. The rise, as measured by the Infoconomy Index of quarterly revenue change among the leading 200 IT companies, marks the eleventh month of positive growth and underscores just how fast the sector has emerged from recession. Even the subset of European companies included in the Index showed a move back towards the positive as their combined growth rate improved from -3.7% to -3.2%.

As that emphasises, the influences on the buoyant global Index came mostly from the US. Among multi-billion dollar vendors, there were some stunning growth rates: networking systems giant Cisco posted a 22% rise; revenues leapt 21% at PC and server marker Dell; and IT services company CSC clocked up growth of 30%.

There were higher levels of growth elsewhere, although in several cases this were fuelled by acquisitions. Business Objects, the data analysis software vendor, recorded an 83% rise in revenue, with the bulk of that due to the addition of rival Crystal Decisions; and security software vendor Symantec posted a 43% uplift in quarterly revenue, though this latest quarter was inflated by the revenues of several acquisition targets. Pushing the European number back towards the positive were strong results from UK-headquartered business applications software vendor Sage, where revenues grew 18%, and from WM-data, the Swedish IT services company, which turned in revenue growth of 14%, helped by the company's acquisition of the Finland's Novo Group.

The Infoconomy 200 Index measures the overall growth rate of the IT industry by tracking the financial results of the world's most important publicly listed IT companies.