Top 10 Technologies & Trends for 2014
October 17, 2013 1:16 PM
1. Mobile Device Diversity and Management
Enterprise policies on employee-owned hardware usage need to be thoroughly reviewed and, where necessary, updated and extended
. Set policies to define clear expectations around what they can and can't do. Balance flexibility with confidentiality and privacy requirements.
2. Mobile Apps and Applications
Gartner predicts that through 2014, improved JavaScript performance will begin to push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream enterprise application development environment. Gartner recommends that developers focus on creating expanded user interface models including richer voice and video that can connect people in new and different ways.
3. The Internet of Everything
The Internet is expanding beyond PCs and mobile devices into enterprise assets such as field equipment, and consumer items such as cars and televisions
. The combination of data streams and services created by digitizing everything creates four basic usage models Manage; Monetize; Operate; Extend. These four basic models can be applied to any of the four "internets (people, things, information and places). Enterprises should not limit themselves to thinking that only the Internet of Things (i.e., assets and machines) has the potential to leverage these four models.
4. Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service Broker
Bringing together personal clouds and external private cloud services is an imperative. Enterprises should design private cloud services with a hybrid future in mind and make sure future integration/interoperability is possible.
5. Cloud/Client Architecture
In the cloud/client architecture, the client is a rich application running on an Internet-connected device, and the server is a set of application services hosted in an increasingly elastically scalable cloud computing platform. The cloud is the control point and system or record and applications can span multiple client devices.
6. The Era of Personal Cloud
The personal cloud era will mark a power shift away from devices toward services
. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Rather, the personal cloud will take on that role.
7. Software Defined Anything
Software-defined anything (SDx) is a collective term that encapsulates the growing market momentum for improved standards for infrastructure programmability and data center interoperability driven by automation inherent to cloud computing, DevOps and fast infrastructure provisioning.
8. Web-Scale IT
Web-scale IT is a pattern of global-class computing that delivers the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting by rethinking positions across several dimensions.
9. Smart Machines
Through 2020, the smart machine era will blossom with a proliferation of contextually aware, intelligent personal assistants, smart advisors (such as IBM Watson), advanced global industrial systems and public availability of early examples of autonomous vehicles. The smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT.
10. 3-D Printing
While very expensive additive manufacturing devices have been around for 20 years, the market for devices ranging from $50,000 to $500, and with commensurate material and build capabilities, is nascent yet growing rapidly.
