WebKnowHow Thursday, December 14, 2006; 07:28 AM
Gartner, Inc. released today 10 key predictions that showcase the
trends and events that will change the nature of business and IT in
2007 and beyond.
These predictions are for general technology areas rather than specific
to industries or roles within an organization. The predictions are
intended to compel high-tech companies and IT professionals within
enterprises to action and position themselves to take advantage of the
coming changes, and not be damaged by them.
“Selected from across our research areas as the most compelling and
critical predictions, the trends and topics they address this year
indicate that priorities, markets, cultures and technologies are all
rapidly changing,” said Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and
Gartner Fellow. “These changes will require that IT and business change
their approach to delivering and quantifying value. IT professionals
must examine these predictions for opportunities to increase their
support of consumer-driven requirements and their ability to help the
business deliver stronger services to those customers.”
This year’s predictions include:
Through 2009, market share for the top 10 IT outsourcers will decline
to 40.0% (from 43.5% now), equaling a revenue shift of $5.4 billion. As
market share declines, some key outsourcing vendors will cease to exist
in their current named form. The reduced number of large contracts,
increased amount of competition and reduction in contract sizes have
placed great pressure on outsourcers, which will have to "sink or swim"
based on support for selective outsourcing and disciplined
multisourcing competencies.
Only one Asia/Pacific-based service provider will make the global top
20 through 2010. The number of global players in consulting that come
from Asia is relatively small. This will limit the ability of the Asian
juggernaut to grow revenue streams rapidly and become global leaders.
Blogging and community contributors will peak in the first half of
2007. Given the trend in the average life span of a blogger and the
current growth rate of blogs, there are already more than 200 million
ex-bloggers. Consequently, the peak number of bloggers will be around
100 million at some point in the first half of 2007.
By 2009, corporate social responsibility (CSR) will be a higher board-
and executive-level priority than regulatory compliance. Regulation has
become a key issue for government and the corporate world, with the aim
of ensuring more-responsible behavior. However, the need for companies
to be socially responsible to their employees, customers and
shareholders is growing as well. The future will see corporate boards
and executives make this social dynamic a more-critical priority.
By the end of 2007, 75% of enterprises will be infected with
undetected, financially motivated, targeted malware that evaded their
traditional perimeter and host defenses. The threat environment is
changing — financially motivated, targeted attacks are increasing, and
automated malware-generation kits allow simple creation of thousands of
variants quickly — but our security processes and technologies haven’t
kept up.
Vistawill be the last major release of Microsoft Windows. The next
generation of operating environments will be more modular and will be
updated incrementally. The era of monolithic deployments of software
releases is nearing an end. Microsoft will be a visible player in this
movement, and the result will be more-flexible updates to Windows and a
new focus on quality overall.
By 2010, the average total cost of ownership (TCO) of new PCs will fall
by 50%. The growing importance and focus on manageability, automation
and reliability will provide a welcome means of differentiating PCs in
a market that is increasingly commoditized. Many of the manageability
and support tools will be broadly available across multiple vendors.
However, vendors that can leverage these tools further and can graduate
from claims of "goodness" to concrete examples of cost savings will
have a market advantage.
By 2010, 60% of the worldwide cellular population will be "trackable"
via an emerging "follow-me Internet." Local regulations have arisen to
protect users’ privacy, but growing demands for national safety and
civil protection are relaxing some of the initial privacy limitations.
Marketing incentives will also push users to forgo privacy concerns,
and many other scenarios will enable outsiders to track their users.
Through 2011, enterprises will waste $100 billion buying the wrong
networking technologies and services. Enterprises are missing out on
opportunities to build a network that would put them at a competitive
advantage. Instead, they follow outdated design practices and
collectively will waste at least $100 billion in the next five years.
By 2008, nearly 50% of data centers worldwide will lack the necessary
power and cooling capacity to support high-density equipment. With
higher densities of processors proliferating, problems in this area
continue to grow. Although the power and cooling challenge of
high-density computer equipment will persist in the short term, a
convergence of innovative technologies will begin to mitigate the
problem by 2010.
These 10 key trends are part of a series of "Gartner Predicts"
research, which also includes top predictions for specific roles across
the eight Gartner for IT Leaders programs and for key vertical
industries. The entire series of “Gartner Predicts” research includes
nearly 50 reports that discuss the major trends that will affect IT
users, high-tech and telecom companies and most industries in 2007 and
beyond. Each year, Gartner analysts in every research area converge to
identify, debate and develop these trends to help companies with their
tactical IT planning and investment decisions in the short term and
their overall IT strategy in the long term. The Gartner Predicts 2007
Special Reports series are available on Gartner’s Web site at
www.gartner.com.
More information on these top predictions for general technology areas
is available in the Gartner Special Report “Gartner’s Top Predictions
for IT Organizations and Users, 2007 and Beyond” at
www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=498768&subref=simplesearch.
The top predictions for IT leaders can be found at
www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=498769&subref=simplesearch.
The top predictions for key industries can be found at
www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=498770&subref=simplesearch.
About Gartner:
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) delivers the technology-related insight
necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day.
Gartner serves 10,000 organizations, including chief information
officers and other senior IT executives in corporations and government
agencies, as well as technology companies and the investment community.
The Company consists of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs,
Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events. Founded in 1979, Gartner is
headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 3,700
associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants in 75
countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.
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