Gartner publishes an annual top 10 list of broad technology predictions selected from more than 100 predictions that its analysts present and review every year.
Prediction #1: The challenge of current world economic conditions is set to drive uptake of video telepresence in the next three years, with the travel industry losing out, according to Gartner Inc.
#2: From 2009 to 2013 the server virtualization software market will grow with a compound annual growth rate of 28 percent, rising from US$1.8bn to US$6.2bn. Organizations are looking at ways to cut costs, better utilize assets and reduce implementation/management time and complexity. Virtualization addresses all of these concerns.
3: By 2011, 30 percent of consulting and systems integration revenue will be delivered via ‘cloud computing,’ a style of computing where massively scaleable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered ‘as a service’ to external customers using Internet technologies.
4: By 2012, as many as one in three of the top 20 business process outsourcing (BPO) providers will no longer exist. Contracts which today rely on significant front-end transition investment and time will likely give way to standardized services utilizing cloud-oriented approaches.
#5: By 2012, successful enterprises will actively encourage and reward more failures in order to find the optimal approach they want more quickly. Unfortunately, for many reasons, most business managers lack the skills to change processes or understand how desired changes might affect others. Thus, the BPM principle that business managers and process participants can and should be able to change processes — either changing the design, the instance, the data or the execution — is very scary to many.
Prediction #6: In 2012, the major PC vendors will recycle only one PC for every five they ship. With ongoing PC market growth and strong adoption of mobile PCs, the volume of secondary PCs is accelerating. Without subsidies, PC recycling is usually not profitable.
#7: By 2012, 30 percent of mobile PCs sold in the worldwide consumer market will be priced at less than US$300. Low-cost PCs allow vendors to increase PC penetration in emerging markets across Asia Pacific, in Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa. The inclusion of wireless functionality for mobile Internet connectivity, when combined with growing availability of wireless infrastructure makes these devices attractive to telecommunications service providers, opening up a new distribution channel.
#8: By year end 2013, 40 percent of enterprise knowledge workers will have abandoned or removed their desk phone. With complex desk phones costing several hundred dollars per unit, and growing moves toward remote workers, hotdesking and other business practices which unlink an individual from a fixed location, there are significant cost savings possible.
#9: By the end of next year 2010, wireless operators will cease to offer unlimited (flat-rate) mobile data plans. Gartner warns that users must expect data throughput limitations on 3G to continue and plan mobile enterprise services accordingly. New bandwidth-intensive smart phones and mobile Internet devices are accelerating the demand for bandwidth, with devices like Apple’s iPhone driving significant increases in mobile data usage. Networks are already hitting capacity and increased customer demand is impacting network availability and effective throughput.
Prediction #10: By year end 2012, physical sensors will create 20 percent of non-video Internet traffic. We are all familiar with CCTV systems for monitoring traffic movement, license plates and many other applications, but how about collecting data from the hard-disk shock sensors in your notebook to collect data to better understand earth tremors and earthquakes?
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