Gartner tips top ten techs

Beverley Head
Wednesday, 19 October 2011 12:47

Business IT - Technology

ICT analyst Gartner - which is holding its annual Symposium on the Gold Coast next month - has today announced the top ten technologies that it believes will be of strategic importance to enterprises next year. The envelope please'¦

The company defines strategic technology as technology expected to have a significant impact on organisations in the coming three years - and generally points toward more mature applications. The analyst suggests companies gather as much information as they can about the ten technologies identified and also kick off exploratory projects if they haven't already deployed.

Gartner's top ten list for 2012 comprises:

• Media tablets;
• Mobile centric applications and interfaces;
• Context aware computing and social user experience;
• The internet of things as more devices are provided with an IP address (with particular focus on the advent of near field communication chip enabled devices that could facilitate payment);
• App stores and marketplaces;
• Advanced analytics with a focus on decision support and collaboration;
• Big data;
• In-memory computing as flash becomes common in consumer devices and embedded IT;
• Low energy services; and
• Cloud computing (no surprises there then).

The organisation has also pointed to the need for enterprises to not just adopt the technologies holus bolus - but to think strategically about how they are deployed. For example it notes that although mobility will be important organisations will need to develop two separate but connected strategies - one to offer mobility solutions for employees and a second approach to support mobile consumers.

The role of enterprise IT managers is also likely to be impacted - both as a result of the rise of the app store concept and continued interest in cloud computing. To a degree IT managers seem likely to play an increasing role as ICT conductor rather than composer in the future.

Gartner forecasts that by 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile application downloads from app stores every year. At the same time the use of app stores will move away from being a consumer-only phenomenon and percolate into the enterprise.