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Follow UsElsewhere in this issue, (100 Tech Trends 2005, page 110) we make predictions on which way technology is likely to go in the coming year. This piece explains some of the theory behind our classifications.
Technology adoption curve
When discussing the rate of technology adoption, one is likely to come across the Gartner Hype Curve. The Hype Curve is an adaptation of the theory of Diffusion of Innovations first set forth by Everett Rogers in 1962 in his book by the same name. Rogers posited that adopters of a new idea or innovation could be divided into five types, namely innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards, and innovation would spread through society in an S-curve.
| Technologies | What happened |
| DSL | Happened, happening in a big way |
| Directory Services |
Happened, sort of |
| DVD | Happening, big time |
| FireWire | Happened |
| New Human Interface Tech |
Not yet |
| Everything over IP |
Happened |
| IPv6 | Not yet |
| Java | Happened big time |
| MPEG 4 |
Hot and happening, but MPEG 2 is still happening |
| Smart Cards |
Happening |
Geoffrey A Moore (not to be confused with Gordon E Moore of Moore's law fame) in his book Crossing the Chasm, 1991, discusses issues of marketing high-tech products and sets out that in the case of high-tech markets, the technology adoption cycle is not continuous, but that there exists a chasm between the early adopters and the early majority, because of differing expectations between the visionaries and the pragmatists.
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As an aside, how good are we at judging the future?
| Companies | Where they stand today |
| Apple | iTunes made legal music downloads affordable. The iPod |
| Compaq | Did it make a difference? To HP it did! |
| HP | Has gone on to become the number one IT vendor in India |
| IBM | Is still a significant player in too many boats to be ignored |
| Intel | Drove many trends, driving wireless currently |
| Lucent | Has more or less dropped out of sight |
| Microsoft | Any doubts whether this one merits watching? |
| Palm | Fell drastically after the PDA market refused to zoom off |
| Sony | Yet to make a significant impact in things computing |
| Sun | Still waiting for the next big thing after Java |
| Epson | Has given the lead to HP, at least in the Indian market |
| Nokia | Owns the bulk of the Indian cellphone market |
| Macromedia | Have they slowed down recently? |
| Oracle | Manages to be in the news, for lawsuits, if not for products |
| RedHat | Made open-source a profitable and working business model |
| Moral of the story: We are better at predicting technology than business trends! |
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As a case study, consider our December 1999 issue where we talked of 10 technologies for the future (page 119) and 15
technology companies to watch out for (page 99). Four years later, what is our success rate?