Global IT debt will total approximately $500 billion in 2010, with the potential to rise to $1 trillion by 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. After a decade of tight budgets, the scale of the maintenance backlog has created a systemic risk, particularly for large organizations. Gartner defines IT debt as the cost of clearing the backlog of maintenance that would be required to bring the corporate applications portfolio to a fully supported current release state.
Gartner analysts said one way to characterize this backlog of deferred liability is to see it as a debt incurred in previous years that will need to be paid off at some time. This "IT debt" is a hidden risk for many organizations, and given continued tight economic conditions, this IT debt is growing, and the associated business risk is growing.
As businesses continue to invest in business value-added projects that add more functionality and complexity into the existing and aging portfolio, the size of the IT debt grows as well, because the additional functionality and complexity will need to be maintained and upgraded to a more-reliable state at some point in the future.
Gartner analysts said IT leaders should produce an annual report on the status of the application portfolio. The report should detail the status of the application portfolio in terms that the rest of the business can readily absorb, detailing the number of applications in use, the number acquired, the number decommissioned, and the current and projected costs of both operating and sustaining or improving the integrity of the application assets.
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