The Top Ten for Twenty Twelve
By Anna Mathieu, Redfish Technology Marketing Communications
I always love this time of year when yearend industry data is collected and sliced and diced and trends are forecast for the future. The technology trends from Gartner this year are exciting; some are a continuation this year’s thick of things and some are more sublime.
The “Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2012” report names the top technologies that will be strategic for most organizations in 2012. “These top 10 technologies will be strategic for most organizations, and IT leaders should use this list in their strategic planning process by reviewing the technologies and how they fit into their expected needs,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner fellow.
- Media Tablets and Beyond
- Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces
- Contextual and Social User Experience
- Internet of Things
- App Stores and Marketplaces
- Next-Generation Analytics
- Big Data
- In-Memory Computing
- Extreme Low-Energy Servers
- Cloud Computing
Shall we take a peek?
1. Media Tablets and Beyond. In a word “ubiquitous”. With a vast array of choices, there will be challenges to enterprises in terms of managing the various platforms and technologies. And as more folks use their personal devices, there will be management issues associate with their co-mingling with work tools in terms of security and risk management.
2. Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces. Everyone is going mobile which requires a whole new interface paradigm, and a whole lot of cross-platform environment adaptability. Gartner predicts that by 2015, mobile Web technologies will have advanced sufficiently, so that half the applications that would be written as native apps in 2011 will instead be delivered as Web apps.
3. Contextual and Social User Experience. They know who you are and where you are! The context-aware computing and the aggregation of user data provide a seamless targeted experience for many, and this trend is going to continue. Careful what you post to your favorite social network, a compatible product or service will likely be marketed to you on the next screen you view.
4. Internet of Things (IoT). This one is fun: The IoT is a concept that describes how the Internet will expand as sensors and intelligence are added to physical items such as consumer devices or physical assets and these objects are connected to the Internet. For example: Sensors embedded in mobile devices, and an increasing number of places and objects; Image Recognition technology – no longer reserved to the NSA; and Near Field Communication (NFC) payment so that you can pay with your phone – super convenient, just don’t let your kids play with your phone!
5. App Stores and Marketplaces. Gartner forecasts that by 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile application downloads from app stores every year. Forrester describes the future of the “App Internet” where very powerful cloud services are connected to and interpolating with very powerful applications on local devices.
6. Next-Generation Analytics. Let’s get to the next generation! Gartner hails an evolution that will provide simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, not simply information, empowering even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action.
7. Big Data. Is your back-up running smoothly? The amount of data produced today is staggering. I wonder what the rate of increase is year over year, probably higher than capacity. “Hitachi’s law” (so named by George Colony of Forrester) is that storage doubles every 12 months.
8. In-Memory Computing. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. As cost and availability of memory intensive hardware platforms reach tipping points in 2012 and 2013, the in-memory approach will enter the mainstream.
9. Extreme Low-Energy Servers. Green servers! The next generation of low-energy servers could deliver 30 times or more processors in a particular server unit with lower power consumption vs. current server approaches.
10. Cloud Computing. Get ready for new security issues and technologies.
Read the Gartner “Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2012” in Gartner’s own words.