Nov 5, 2012

Gartner Declares Top 10 Tech Trends for 2013

As par for the course, research firm Gartner has announced their top 10 strategic technology trends for 2013 at the Gartner Symposium IT Expo in Orlando. In a company report, Gartner defines a strategic technology as “one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.” While some of the technologies listed have been around for some time, Gartner says a strategic technology can include one “that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses.” However, it may also include any new emerging technologies that have high potential for disruption to IT or business. “We have identified the top 10 technologies that will be strategic for most organizations, and that IT leaders should factor into their strategic planning processes over the next two years,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner fellow. “This does not necessarily mean enterprises should adopt and invest in all the listed technologies; however companies need to be making deliberate decision about how they fit with their expected needs in the near future.” A nexus of converging forces such as social, mobile, cloud, and information are influencing these technologies, according to Cearley. For each strategic technology trend, Gartner provided a breakdown of details as follows: Mobile Device Battles Gartner predicts that by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common device to access the Web worldwide. By 2015, media tablet shipments will account for 50 percent of laptop shipments. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS will be the top operating systems with Windows 8 in third place. Gartner explains the implications for IT is that “the era of PC dominance with Windows as the single platform will be replaced with a post-PC era where Windows is just one of a variety of environments IT will need to support.” Mobile Applications and HTML5 Currently, Gartner says they separate mobile development tools into several categories including: native, special, hybrid, HTML5, Message and No Client. However, Gartner notes that going forward, “no single tool will be optimal for all types of mobile applications so expect to employ several.” Personal Cloud Over time the personal cloud will begin to replace the PC as the “location where individuals keep their personal content, access their services and personal preferences and center their digital lives.” Mobile device management will be imperative and no one platform, form factor, technology, or vendor will be dominant. Enterprise App Stores By 2014, Gartner expects “many organizations will deliver mobile applications to workers through private application stores. With enterprise app stores the role of IT shifts from that of a centralized planner to a market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users and potentially an ecosystem to support apptrepreneurs.” The Internet of Things Mobile will no longer refer only to cellular use or tablets, but rather be embedded in many new types of devices. Examples include pharmaceutical containers and automobiles. Strategic Big Data Since big data will be moving from individual projects to enterprises, multiple systems, including content management, data warehouses, and data marts - specialized file systems will become the “logical” enterprise data warehouse. Actionable Analytics Gartner explains that analytics will increasingly be delivered to users at the point of action and in context. Because of the improvement of performance and costs, IT will be able to “perform analytics and simulation for every action taken in the business. The mobile client linked to cloud-based analytic engines and big data repositories potentially enables use of optimization and simulation everywhere and every time.” In Memory Computing With in memory computing (IMC), processes can be downsized into minutes or even seconds allowing these “processes to be provided in the form of real-time or near real-time services that can be delivered to internal or external users in the form of cloud services.” Integrated Ecosystems The market will pull away from loosely coupled heterogeneous approaches and more towards integrated systems and ecosystems. Vendors including Apple, Google and Microsoft will drive “varying degrees of control across and end-to-end ecosystem extending the client through the apps.” If you are running a small business, and you do not have an internal IT department to help steer your ship into the bountiful seas of tomorrow's tech avantages, partner with a team who is. NewtekOne, The Small Business Authority is at the forefront of technology for small business owners so you can stay atop, not behind, trends that can keep you at the forefront of your competitive set.