Gartner has identified 27 emerging technologies and predicts that eight
of these will have a transformational business impact and should be
strongly considered for adoption by technology planners in the next 10
years, according to the report "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies,
2008."
"Although Web 2.0 is now entering the Trough of Disillusionment, it
will emerge within two years to have transformational impact, as
companies steadily gain more experience and success with both the
technologies and the cultural implications," said Jackie Fenn, vice
president and Gartner Fellow. "Later — in between two and five
years — cloud computing and service-oriented architecture (SOA),
which is moving up the Slope of Enlightenment, will deliver
transformation in terms of driving deep changes in the role and
capabilities of IT. Finally, public virtual worlds, which are suffering
from disillusionment after their peak of hype in 2007, will in the long
term represent an important media channel to support and build broader
communities of interest."
Technologies and trends at or around the peak of the Hype Cycle in 2008
(see Figure 1) that will reach the plateau in two to five years are:
- Green IT — Along with broader societal pressure
for environmentally sustainable solutions, IT has the opportunity
— and in many cases, a requirement — to improve the
"greenness" of its own activities, as well as to contribute to broader
company and industry environmental initiatives.
- Cloud computing
— As companies seek to consume their IT services in the most
cost-effective way, interest is growing in drawing a broad range of
services (for example, computational power, storage and business
applications) from the "cloud," rather than from on-premises equipment.
Many types of technology providers are aligning themselves with this
trend, with the result that confusion and hype will continue for at
least another year before distinct submarkets and market leaders emerge.
- Social computing platforms
— Following the phenomenal success of consumer-oriented social
networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, companies are examining
the role that these sites, or their enterprise-grade equivalents, will
play in future collaboration environments. The scope is also expanding
to incorporate the notion of social "platforms," or environments for a
broad range of developers to build on the basic application.
- Video telepresence
— High-end videoconferencing systems (for example, from HP,
Cisco, Teliris and others) that utilize large, high-definition (HD)
displays and components to show life-size images of participants in
meeting rooms or suites have proven significantly more effective than
earlier generations of videoconferencing technology in providing a
strong sense of in-room presence between remote participants. High cost
is currently the barrier to broader adoption.
- Microblogging —
Pioneered by Twitter (although other services such as FriendFeed or
Plurk are also available), microblogging is a relatively new addition
to the world of social networking, in which contributors post a stream
of very short messages (fewer than 140 characters) providing
information about their current activity or thoughts, which can then be
subscribed to by others. The phenomenon has caught on among certain
online communities, and leading-edge companies are investigating its
role in enhancing other social media and channels.
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"Following the trend of the last few years, many of the new entries on
this year's Hype Cycle, including microblogging, social networking
platforms and cloud computing, are making their impact in the consumer
world before they hit businesses," Ms Fenn said. "Other technologies
that have passed the trigger where they start to be interesting to
businesses include 3-D printing, surface computing, augmented reality
and mobile robots. We expect early adopters to start applying these in
novel ways and driving new classes of application, such as using 3-D
printers to dramatically change the supply chain by creating products
and replacement parts at the point of need."
Ms Fenn has been authoring the Hype Cycle for emerging trends for 13
years. She said the emerging technologies Hype Cycle focuses on
strategic technology and innovative function within IT. It is the
broadest aggregate of Gartner's Hype Cycles, highlighting emerging
technologies from all areas of IT that technology planners should
evaluate as part of their emerging-technology plans.
"The Hype Cycle should be used along with a planning model such as the
Priority Matrix, which highlights the technologies we believe are worth
adopting early because of their potentially high impact," Ms Fenn said.
"However, the actual benefit will vary significantly across industries
so planners need to ascertain which of these individual opportunities
relate most closely to their organisational requirements."
Ms Fenn is co-author of Gartner's upcoming book "Mastering the Hype
Cycle: How to Adopt the Right Innovation at the Right Time" to be
published by Harvard Business Press in October. Ms Fenn and Mark
Raskino, vice president and Gartner Fellow, explain a market-tested
approach that offers a smarter way for companies to sort through the
hype and choose the right innovations at the right time.
The book can be pre-ordered >>>> In addition, Ms Fenn discusses Gartner's Hype Cycles for 2008 with
Gartner research vice president and distinguished analyst Jeff Comport
in
a podcast available >>>>Zum Thema im Internet*
http://www.gartner.com
*für die Inhalte der Seiten ist der Betreiber verantwortlich.
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