Gartner plays the role of analytic soothsayer and reveals its top 2012 predictions, with visions of the challenges "big data" involves, the cloud, tightening budgets and the consumerisation of IT.
One message from the analyst is immediately clear-- "adapt or be swept away."
And now, the top 2012 predictions themselves...
By 2015, low-cost cloud services will cannibalise up to 15% of top outsourcing players revenue: Industrialised low-cost IT services (ILCS) will permanently alter common perceptions of IT service value and pricing, if not reset the IT value proposition within the next 3-5 years. Think of what happened to the transport industry with the introduction of low-cost airlines.
In 2013, the investment bubble will burst for consumer social networks, and for enterprise social software companies in 2014: A large crop of vendors (including Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Google and VMWare) with overlapping features will compete for a finite audience, resulting in competition that's "unusually aggressive even for the technology market."
By 2016, at least 50% of enterprise email users will rely primarily on a browser, tablet or mobile client instead of a desktop client: As users get increasingly comfortable with using mobile devices and browsers for enterprise application access, email system vendors will need to start providing mobile clients with their offerings. Suppliers will also meet demand for an increasing collaboration service portfolio, with instant messaging, web conferencing, social networking and shared workspaces.
By 2015, mobile application development projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4-to-1: According to Gartner, mobile devices will make up over 90% of new net growth in device adoption in the next 4 years. Enterprise application development is already moving towards mobile devices-- "spurring a new frontier of innovation."
By 2016, 40% of enterprises will make proof of independent security testing a precondition for using any type of cloud service: Instead of requesting 3rd party security vendors to conduct testing, businesses "will be satisfied by a cloud provider's certificate stating that a reputable third-party security vendor has already tested its applications," Gartner says.
By 2015, 35% of enterprise IT expenditures for most organizations will be managed outside the IT department's budget: The "new wave" of business managers will redefine IT projects as business projects, putting line-of-business managers in control-- and CIOs will find some of their current budgets relocated to other business areas as IT budgets become increasingly fluid.
Through 2016, the financial impact of cybercrime will grow 10% per year, due to the continuing discovery of new vulnerabilities: As cloud services grow, so will the software vulnerabilities-- and the hackers finding and attacking them through more targeted attacks.
By 2015, the prices for 80% of cloud services will include a global energy surcharge: Some cloud data centers already add an energy surcharge to their pricing packages, Gartner says-- a trend the analyst believes will "rapidly escalate to include the majority of operators."
Through 2015, more than 85% of Fortune 500 organizations will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive advantage: Data collection and analysis is not enough. Most organisations will find themselves unable to handle the challenges big data involves, resulting in the ineffective exploitation of the trend. For those who do manage, a competitive advantage will result.
Go Gartner Reveals Top Predictions for IT Organisations and Users for 2012 and Beyond
