The steady acceleration in the growth rate of the global information technology industry, that has characterised most of the past year, has come to an end. The Infoconomy Index, which tracks the world’s 200 largest technology companies, dropped 0.4 percentage points to reach 11.1% in September 2007.

At the same time, the Europe-headquartered companies in the index have collectively moved up a gear, quickening their previously sluggish pace. The European Index, which monitors a subset of 50 companies from the region, jumped up to 8.2%. Indeed, the last three months have seen the European Index climb almost 3 percentage points.

The industry-wide slowdown, however, comes in spite of good financial performance from some the big names of the industry, most noticeably Oracle, which reported impressive revenue growth of 20% in September (see Financial Report). This suggests that while the top tier of the industry is living high on the hog of following numerous acquisitions, those smaller companies that have not been assimilated are suffering.

The same could be said of the European Index. Despi te the overall upturn, some of the worst financial performances published in September came from European companies.

UK-based infrastructure services provider Computacenter, which only managed revenue growth of 3%, pulled the European figure downwards. But with the index based on a three-month rolling average, the reporting of 16% revenue growth at both France’s Capgemini and Germany’s SAP during the past two months has kept the index pointing in the right direction.