Ten Game-Changing Technology Shifts for 2012

There are currently three terms that are enjoying attention as being at the centre of the hype cycle--Cloud, Mobility, and Big Data. In most explanations, each is individually addressed as if it is a unique standalone topic. In practice, the reality is that each is a number of technologies clustered together to form a new set of capabilities, rather than any single technology being dominant on its own.

Here are ten technology centric groupings of activities, products and themes that support this change, and there are, of course, recognizable alignments to the TechnoVision clusters and business impacts as might be expected;

1. The Core Change-People rather than IT are the new focus

New forms of connection and delivery enable users to drive their own choices on where and how they work, find information, and indeed even choose what software they download and use.

Example: The Consumerization of IT, Bring Your Own, the Post-PC era

2. Intuitive Presentation and Usability

The shift away from the PC and its attendant keyboard and mouse towards more portable devices used whenever and wherever to suit circumstances has introduced new interactive techniques based on touch screens and gestures that also suit a change in using wider media for interactions beyond mere text using a keyboard.

Example: Smart Phones and Tablets, Gesture Driven, increasing Multimedia

3. From Big IT to Small Services

The shift towards personal choice and assembly of small granular services rather than enterprise level deployment of monolithic applications changes the development methods and methodology. Large numbers of small services can be rapidly orchestrated into chosen processes, and equally quickly changed again.

Example: The creation of App Shops and creative developers of services

4. User-Driver Environments

The three previous groupings have given rise to completely new users centric environments as the origins of Web 2.0 people rather than content centric technologies have matured and grown. Social networks allow the person to define their topics of interest and involvement with the ability to 'receive' selectively, as opposed to email where the sender is in control. Huge networks are developing around the 'topic' linkages as information moves to include 'collective consciousnesses of the social network.

Example: Social CRM, Social Networks, external web based services

5. Big Data Means More Than a Lot of Data

Location and context-aware rich Internet applications are bringing both new requirements in collection and use of information which in turn means a wide range of data formats including blending multi-media in with existing traditional data definitions.

Example: NoSQL databases, Search Engines, image recognition

6. Tight-Coupled Computers to Loose-Coupled People

Computers and applications 'push' structured process data integrated through a predetermined set of fixed 'tight coupled' connections defined by client-server architecture. In contrast, people interact and 'pull' unstructured information and services on a cloud or web architecture which is defined as 'loose coupled'. When using the 'loose coupled' Web/Cloud the user chooses where to go, versus a traditional enterprise application environment, which offers only predetermined transactional paths.

Example: The 'true' cloud based on the Internet/Web, second generation browsers

5. Development and Deployment Methods

Small personalized services that will run on cloud platforms and are therefore simple scripting assemblies require a radically different approach to development than traditional monolithic applications with the need to interface with operating systems to ensure performance and security.

Example: Agile Development, Force.com, and the rise of Platform as a Service

7. Next Generation Data Centers Deliver True Cloud

The shift from deterministic numbers of applications and systems in a deterministic traditional IT environment to the ability to provide totally flexible allocation of computational resources on demand defines the 'next generation data center', a industry recognised term. In addition to the obvious flexibility required to support the people inside the enterprise working in new ways the radical shift in requirements towards participation in a common external environment with other enterprise data centers as part of the 'true' cloud environment creates the need for a new 'cloud services' layer.

Example: Standardised and onLine, 'bare metal' based running cloud layer, increasingly Green

9. Mobility in Every Sense of the Term

The term Mobile has tended to be used to describe delivering a traditional client-server application onto an external device with intermittent connectivity requiring complex synchronisation and resulting data held on the device outside the enterprise.

Example: Android Smart Phones and Tablets, Apple iPod, iPhone and iPad and SAP Mobility Platform

10. The Redefinition of Security

Security is clearly a major issue as the expansion of activities moves outside the enterprise invoking wider interactions in semi public environments with many unknown combinations of people and services.

Example: Jericho Security, Closed App Shop models.