The wallet.(Report)

In its report, Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users, 2009 and Beyond: Where Is the Money?, Gartner Inc., Stamford, Connecticut, predicts 10 major trends in information technology (IT).

* The challenge of current world economic conditions is set to drive uptake of video telepresence in the next three years, which will negatively affect the travel industry most. Gartner predicts that high-definition-based video-meeting solutions will replace 2.1 million airline seats annually, costing the travel and hospitality industry $3.5 billion per year.

* From 2009 to 2013, the server-virtualization software market will grow with a compound annual growth rate of 28 percent, rising from $1.8 billion to $6.2 billion. Virtualization's impact on the IT industry has been dramatic, and will continue to be the catalyst for change in infrastructure and operations until 2013. Organizations are looking at ways to cut costs, better utilize assets and reduce implementation/management time and complexity. Virtualization addresses all of these concerns.

* By 2011, 30 percent of consulting and systems-integration revenue will be delivered via "cloud computing"--a style of computing where massively scaleable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to external customers using Internet technologies. Organizations should consider cloud-based delivery options from their consulting and systems integration provider, as it will enable the delivery of a potentially more cost-effective solution.

* By 2012, as many as one in three of the top 20 business process outsourcing (BPO) providers will no longer exist. The market will witness a shakeout of its competitive landscape this year as providers are swept up in the economic crisis, and are exposed to loss-making contracts on their books and an inability to adapt to standardized business models. The economic crisis comes at a critical time for many providers that will need to improve service levels while taking cost out of the business. Contracts that today rely on significant front-end transition investment and time will likely give way to standardized services utilizing cloud-oriented approaches. Providers that cannot adapt to offer the delivery of this style of comprehensive services or maintain profitability will increasingly struggle. According to Gartner, companies must evaluate potential BPO providers in light of their recent activities, set time aside for strategic discussions and prepare contingency plans in case of consolidation.

* By 2012, successful enterprises will actively encourage and reward more failures in order to find the optimal approach they want more quickly. Unfortunately, many business managers lack the skills to change processes or understand how desired changes might affect others. Thus, the business process management (BPM) principle that business managers and process participants can and should be able to change processes--either changing the design, the instance, the data or the execution--is very scary to many. This will not change unless business users are given and encouraged to build their skills and test their ideas about which process needs more or less agility, where the flex point should be, what the effects are of one change versus another, and how change affects process performance and process partners.

* In 2012, the major personal computer (PC) vendors will recycle only one PC for every five they ship. With ongoing PC market growth and strong adoption of mobile PCs, the volume of secondary PCs is accelerating. However, PC recycling is still highly dependent on government legislation and subsidies. Without subsidies, PC recycling is usually not profitable. Vendors have made some progress developing recycling schemes, but the volume of product they collectively take back is a fraction of the total they produce. The IT industry as a whole needs to do more, particularly because the PC is only one type of electronic waste. Actions might include auditing and publication of vendor-recycling data, universal inclusion of recycling costs in the original cost of sale and research into how average life cycles might be extended.

* By 2012, 30 percent of mobile PCs sold in the worldwide consumer market will be priced at less than $300. Low-cost PCs allow vendors to increase PC penetration in emerging markets across Asia Pacific and in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The inclusion of wireless functionality for mobile Internet connectivity, when combined with growing availability of wireless infrastructure, makes these devices attractive to telecommunications service providers, opening up a new distribution channel. According to Gartner, enterprises should also consider the possible uses of these devices and whether they enable new business opportunities.

* By year-end 2013, 40 percent of enterprise knowledge workers will have abandoned or removed their desk phone. With complex desk phones costing several hundred dollars per unit, and growing moves toward remote workers, there are significant cost savings possible.

By the end of 2010, wireless operators will cease to offer unlimited (flat-rate) mobile data plans. Gartner warns that users must expect data-throughput limitations on 3G (the third generation of developments in wireless technology) to continue, and plan mobile enterprise services accordingly. New bandwidth-intensive smart phones and mobile Internet devices are accelerating the demand for bandwidth, with devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone[R] driving significant increases in mobile data usage. Networks are already hitting capacity, and increased customer demand is impacting network availability and effective throughput.

* By year-end 2012, physical sensors will create 20 percent of non-video Internet traffic. The extent and diversity of real-time environmental sensing is growing rapidly as our ability to act on and interpret the growing volumes of data to capture valuable information increases. Gartner suggests organizations consider how use of the growing volume of real-time data might create new business models and enable better-informed business decision-making.

The Gartner report is available at www.gartner.com.

Print Get the Mag Weekly Updates