The Technology Life

Just prior to the Consumer Electronics Show, I was asked to participate in a collaborative mobile trends effort. The results are out and I’m honored to be in such good company — over four dozen people participated and I’m not at all shy to say that most of them are far smarter than me. Each of us was asked to identify and briefly describe what mobile trends we envision for the next 10 years. Having read through the listing, there are some expected overlaps, but there’s also many unique aspects as well.

The slide show is freely available to view or download, so if you’re interested in hearing about mobile in the next 10 years, I highly recommend a peek. Thanks for asking me to take part, Rudy!

Related GigaOm Pro Research: “10 Mobile Predictions for 2010“

Read our latest market research report, "Are You Ready for the TV Widget Revolution." Only at GigaOM Pro.

It’s that time of year to look into the crystal ball and make predictions for 2010. One of my favorite forecasts is that by Gartner. What I find most interesting is that it’s the users of technology, who are driving these technology trends in a big way. Did you know…

…that in less than five years, the growth of enterprise data is projected to be 650%! And, 80% of that data will be unstructured. We are sending and accessing data like never before, and enterprises need a way to manage and store this explosion of data. Look to such technologies as virtualization, automated tiering, and data duplication.

…that the fastest growing social network is Twitter, with annual growth of 1,382%! And of these new users, 62% are between the ages of 39 and 51. The new normal extends far beyond teenagers and includes everyone in the enterprise ecosystem: employees, customers, and partners.

…that the number of text messages sent in the past 24 hours was 6,700,000,000 and exceeds the total population of the planet! How can IT and companies as a whole embrace social networking to its advantage, and how can IT set policies and influence new rules of engagement?

Why does all this matter? In one word, optimization. These trends require us to look at the utilization of our assets (computing, storage, mobile devices, etc.), cost savings, unified communications, and the customer experience, all of which ultimately affects the competitive advantage of the enterprise.

When making plans for 2010, Gartner suggests watching these trends carefully:

1 – Virtualization

2 – Data Deluge

3 – Energy and Green IT

4 – Complex Resource Tracking

5 – Social Software

6 – Unified Communication (UC)

7 – Mobile and Wireless

8 – System Density

9 – Mashups and Portals

10 – Cloud Computing

Arguably, it’s best to address certain trends now. As you plan for 2010, you may want to consider these thoughts:

Thousands of new applications are coming online, and social media is unstoppable. How will you manage data, and deliver applications to end users with multiple devices and smart phones?

As communication applications become tightly integrated and device agnostic, what Unified Communication business scenarios make sense for your enterprise?

To reduce operating expenses and increase efficiencies, how can an enterprise leverage virtualization and server utilization so that it uses only what it needs? And finally, are there any common services available now that can be moved to the cloud, of course after evaluating these applications and services based upon SLA’s and risks?

The New Year is a perfect time to take a fresh look at, and perhaps take a new approach toward, the technology trends IT deem most important.

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Tags: 2010 Technology Trends, Gartner, social media, technology trends, Twitter, unifed communication, virtualization

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 8:15 am and is filed under Mobility & Devices, Unified communications, cloud computing, green IT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Offering another perspective...

As we move toward 2010, there is little question that mobile devices and smartphones will continue to have a huge impact on the market. Research firm Nielsen predicts that smartphones will dominate market share by the end of 2011, with the iPhone and Android-based phones taking the lead spots by a wide margin over traditional cell phones.

As devices mature, Wi-Fi connections become more ubiquitous, and 3G networks become more reliable, consumers will start looking for new ways to use their smartphones as replacements for other larger devices, such as PCs and TVs. One area that has been called out for growth is mobile video and TV, as well as streaming movies directly to a mobile device.

mSpot CEO and co-founder Daren Tsui made the case to me recently that full-length streaming movies will be important to consumers in 2010 because people want entertainment on the go and on demand. Research suggests that the adoption curve will be lead by young males 18- to 24-years-old and parents with young children looking to keep kids distracted.

Not surprisingly, mobile carriers are very supportive of mobile movies. According to Tsui, mSpot has been powering mobile movies on the Sprint wireless network for three years and is currently working with other carriers to bring the service to their user base. Realistically, carriers will always be happy about services they can offer and charge for, but the real question is if they could handle an influx of users sucking down huge amounts of bandwidth.

The obvious obstacle to be overcome is the strength of the data network. Streaming full-length movies to a phone is data-intensive, and therefore relies heavily on a strong, consistently reliable network. Assuming WiFi is available, this is a non-issue, but, as an example, AT&T's 3G network has struggled with the data usage of iPhone users and you can just imagine what will happen when millions of people start streaming movies.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that my wife and I bring an iPod Touch out with us to entertain my 2.5-year-old with various games and movies. Pocket-size mobile devices, iPod or otherwise, can be great learning tools as well as distractions when things are going sideways or when you just want to go to a restaurant and not chase a kid around. That said, my iPhone/AT&T network experience has been so spotty that I would likely opt to keep the content local, though in an ideal world new content could be downloaded in the background.

Assuming bandwidth is not an issue there are many possibilities for mobile content to take the place of traditional PCs or print media but in the near term mobile content will be only as good as its data connection.

Mobile, Mobile everywhere!