IT pros: Where must we go from here?
As every IT professional knows, information technology is changing especially dramatically in this moment. How we build IT infrastructure is changing… how we optimize, manage, analyze, keep secure and utilize IT, from big data and cloud computing to mobile connectivity for the internet of everything. Corporate IT continues — and must continue — to get more efficient, cheaper to operate and more accessible and seamless for those who depend on its power.
Our job is to understand, predict and manage our systems which both enable and are enabled by this continued rapid evolution.
To help us understand and predict, let’s thank David Cearley, vice president at Gartner — he spoke about top technology trends at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo events this year, which gathered about 7,000 CIOs, and more than 24,000 senior IT executives altogether, to offer a strategic view on trends shaping IT and business.
He presented these 10 strategy technology trends that will have major impacts on organizations for the next few years. His advice: companies should be aware, assess and plan to make thoughtful, methodical decisions about each of these during the next two years. Get a taste of Cearley’s key issues below, then dig into the detail in his full overview reporthere.
Merging Real and Virtual Worlds
1. Computing Everywhere
Mobile computing keeps growing. Gartner predicts a greater need to move beyond the operation and connectivity of the devices themselves, to consider the diversifying needs of users in the context of the applications they depend on.
2. The Internet of Things
Gartner proposes there are four basic models for the use of the many data streams and services generated by our ability to digitize and share everything: Manage, Monetize, Operate and Extend.
3. 3D Printing
As 3D printing technology becomes less expensive and its use grows ever faster, a tipping point should occur within a few years and industrial use will significantly expand
Intelligence Everywhere
4. Advanced, Pervasive and Invisible Analytics. 5. Context-Rich Systems
Systems that are aware of and respond appropriately to their surroundings are under development, thanks to increasingly advanced embedded intelligence and sophisticated analytics.
6. Smart Machines
Prototypes already exist for advanced robots, virtual personal assistants, autonomous vehicles, and smart advisors. Gartner predicts these will evolve quickly and we can expect a new era of machine helpers to become the most disruptive in the history of IT.
New IT Reality Emerges
7. Cloud-Client Computing
As cloud and mobile computing converge, centrally coordinated applications delivered to every device will proliferate.
8. Software-Defined Applications and Infrastructure
For IT organizations to deliver flexibility that digital business requires, IT skill sets must emphasize agile programming of both applications and basic infrastructure.
9. Web-Scale IT
More standard enterprise IT organizations will need to think, act and build applications and infrastructure with capabilities like those of large cloud service providers such as Amazon, Facebook and Google.
10. Risk-Based Security and Self-Protection
IT organizations must recognize that it’s no longer possible to provide a 100 percent secured environment. Thus they’ll need to apply more-sophisticated risk assessment and mitigation tools.
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Who is John Paulsen? A former small-business leader myself, I feel your pain (and joy) and hope you’ll enjoy the blog. I launched and ran a well-regarded production company in San Francisco with a team of 9 brilliant, hard working people. I learned to manage a wide array of tasks a small business must handle — business strategy, facilities design, HR, payroll, taxes, marketing, all the way down to choosing telecom equipment and spec’ing a server system to help my team collaborate in real-time on dense media projects from multiple production rooms. I’ve partnered with and learned from dozens of small business owners.
