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Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users for 2012 and Beyond - A Gartner study

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Gartner has revealed its top predictions for IT organizations and

users for 2012 and beyond. Analysts said that the predictions

herald

changes in control for IT organizations as budgets, technologies

and

costs become more fluid and distributed.

This year's selection process included evaluating several

criteria

that define a top prediction. The issues examined included

relevance,

impact and audience appeal. A list of this year's predicts reports

is

available on the Gartner Predicts href="http://www.gartner.com/predicts">website color="#1f497d">.

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Gartner's top predictions for 2012 and beyond showcase the trends

and events that will change the nature of business today and in

years

to come. Selected from across Gartner's research areas as the most

compelling and critical predictions, the trends and topics they

address underline the reduction of control that IT has over the

forces that affect it.

"The continued trends toward consumerization and cloud

computing highlight the movement of certain former IT

responsibilities into the hands of others," said Daryl Plummer,

managing vice president and Gartner fellow. "As users take more

control of the devices they will use, business managers are taking

more control of the budgets IT organizations have watched shift

over

the last few years. As the world of IT moves forward, CIOs are

finding that they must coordinate their activities in a much wider

scope than they once controlled. While this might be a difficult

prospect for IT departments, they must now adapt or be swept

aside."

Gartner analysts said that going into 2012 there is an increase

in

the amount of information available to organizations, but it's a

challenge for them to understand it. Given the shifts in control

of

systems that IT organizations are facing, the loss of ability to

guarantee consistency and effectiveness of data will leave many

struggling to prevent their organizations from missing key

opportunities or from using questionable information for strategic

decisions. No regulatory help is on the near horizon, leaving each

business to decide for itself how to handle the introduction of

big

data.

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"Any organization which wishes to accelerate in 2012 must

establish in itself a significant discipline of coordinating

distributed activities," Plummer said. "They must

establish relationship management as a key skill and train their

people accordingly. The reason for this is that the lack of

control

can only be combated through coordinative activities. The IT

organization of the future must coordinate those who have the

money,

those who deliver the services, those who secure the data, and

those

consumers who demand to set their own pace for use of IT."

Gartner's top predictions for 2012

By 2015, low-cost cloud services will cannibalize up to 15

percent of top outsourcing players' revenue.

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Industrialized low-cost IT services (ILCS) is an emerging market

force that will alter the common perceptions of pricing and value

of

IT services. In the next three to five years, this new model will

reset the value proposition of IT. Low-cost cloud services will

cause

the cannibalization of current and potential outsourcing revenue.

Similar to what happened with the adoption of offshore delivery,

it

will be incumbent upon vendors to invest in and adopt a new

cloud-based, industrialized services strategy either directly or

indirectly, internally or externally. The projected $1 trillion IT

services market is at the beginning of a phase of color="#000000">further

disruption, similar to the one the low-cost airlines have

brought in the transportation industry.

In 2013, the investment bubble will burst for consumer social

networks, and for enterprise social software companies in 2014.

Vendors in the consumer social network space are competing with

each other at a rate and pace that are unusually aggressive, even

in

the technology market. The net result is a large crop of vendors

with

overlapping features competing for a finite audience. In the

enterprise market, many small independent social networking

vendors

are struggling to reach critical mass at a time when market

consolidation is starting, and megavendors, such as Microsoft,

IBM,

Oracle, Google and VMware, have made substantial efforts to

penetrate

the enterprise social networking market. While substantial

excitement

will be raised by private firms going public, valuations of

smaller

independent vendors will diminish as recognition sets in that the

opportunities for market differentiation and fast growth has

eroded.

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By 2016, at least 50 percent of enterprise email users will

rely primarily on a browser, tablet or mobile client instead of

a

desktop client.

While the rise in popularity of mobile devices and the growing

comfort with browser use for enterprise applications preordains a

richer mix of email clients and access mechanisms, the pace of

change

over the next four years will be breathtaking. Email system

vendors

are also likely to build mobile clients for a diverse set of

devices

for the same reason. Market opportunities for mobile device

management platform vendors will soar. Increased pressure will be

on

those suppliers to accommodate an increasing portfolio of

collaboration services, including 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.

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Smartphones and tablets represent more than 90 percent of the new

net growth in device adoption for the coming four years, and

increasing application platform capability across all classes of

mobile phones is spurring a new frontier of innovation,

particularly

where mobile capabilities can be integrated with location,

presence

and social information to enhance the usefulness. Innovation is

moving to the edge for mobile devices; whereas, in 2011, Gartner

estimates that app development projects targeting PCs to be on par

with mobile development. Future adoption will triple from 4Q10 to

1Q14, and will result in the vast majority of client-side

applications being mobile only or mobile first for these devices.

By 2016, 40 percent of enterprises will make proof of

independent security testing a precondition for using any type

of

cloud service.

While enterprises are evaluating the potential cloud benefits in

terms of management simplicity, economies of scale and workforce

optimization, it is equally critical that they carefully evaluate

cloud services for their ability to resist security threats and

attacks. Inspectors' certifications will eventually become a

viable

alternative or complement to third-party testing. This means that

instead of requesting that a third-party security vendor conduct

testing on the enterprise's behalf, the enterprise will be

satisfied

by a cloud provider's certificate stating that a reputable

third-party security vendor has already tested its applications.

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At year-end 2016, more than 50 percent of Global 1000

companies

will have stored customer-sensitive data in the public cloud.

With the current global economy facing financial pressure,

organizations are compelled to reduce operational costs and

streamline their efficiency. Responding to this imperative, it is

estimated that more than 20 percent of organizations have already

begun to selectively store their customer-sensitive data in a

hybrid

architecture that is a combined deployment of their on-premises

solution with a private and/or public cloud provider in 2011.

By 2015, 35 percent of enterprise IT expenditures for most

organizations will be managed outside the IT department's

budget.

Next generation digital enterprises are being driven by a new

wave

of business managers and individual employees who no longer need

technology to be contextualized for them by an IT department.

These

people are demanding control over the IT expenditure required to

evolve the organization within the confines of their roles and

responsibilities. CIOs will see some of their current budget

simply

reallocated to other areas of the business. In other cases, IT

projects will be redefined as business projects with

line-of-business

managers in control.

By 2014, 20 percent of Asia-sourced finished goods and

assemblies consumed in the U.S. will shift to the Americas.


Political, environmental, economic and

supply

chain risks are causing many companies serving the U.S. market

to

shift sources of supply from Asia to the Americas, including

Latin

America, Canada and the U.S. Except in cases where there is a

unique

manufacturing process or product intellectual property, most

products

are candidates to be relocated. Escalating oil prices globally

and

rising wages in many offshore markets, plus the hidden costs

associated with offshore outsourcing, erode the cost savings

that

didn't account for critical supply chain factors, such as

inventory

carrying costs, lead times, demand variability and product

quality.

Through 2016, the financial impact of cybercrime will grow 10

percent per year, due to the continuing discovery of new

vulnerabilities.

As IT delivery methods meet the demand for the use of cloud

services and employee-owned devices, new software vulnerabilities

will be introduced, and innovative attack paths will be developed

by

financially motivated attackers. The combination of new

vulnerabilities and more targeted attacks will lead to continued

growth in bottom-line financial impact because of successful cyber

attacks.

By 2015, the prices for 80 percent of cloud services will

include a global energy surcharge.

While cloud operators can make strategic decisions about

locations, tax subsidies are no long-term answer to managing

costs,

and investments in renewable-energy sources remain costly. Some

cloud

data center operators already include an energy surcharge in their

pricing package, and Gartner analysts believe this trend will

rapidly

escalate to include the majority of operators - driven by

competitive pressures and a "me too" approach. Business and

IT leaders and procurement specialists must expect to see energy

costs isolated and included as a variable element in future cloud

service contracts.

Through 2015, more than 85 percent of Fortune 500

organizations

will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive

advantage.

Current trends in smart devices and growing Internet connectivity

are creating significant increases in the volume of data

available,

but the complexity, variety and velocity with which it is

delivered

combine to amplify the problem substantially beyond the simple

issues

of volume implied by the popular term "big data."

Collecting and analyzing the data is not enough - it must be

presented in a timely fashion so that decisions are made as a

direct

consequence that have a material impact on the productivity,

profitability or efficiency of the organization. Most

organizations

are ill prepared to address both the technical and management

challenges posed by big data; as a direct result, few will be able

to

effectively exploit this trend for competitive advantage.

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