Gartner Lists Top 10 IT Technologies for 2012 
Gartner Inc. has identified 2012’s top corporate IT technologies and the list includes a few heavyweight trends from this year, along with some new players. IDN looks at what Gartner says why next year will be pivotal for clouds, enterprise mobile, business intelligence, enterprise-facing apps stores and in-memory technologies.
Gartner Inc. has identified 2012’s top corporate IT technologies and the list includes a few heavyweight trends from this year, along with some new players. Gartner says to trends will include hybrid clouds, enterprise mobile, business intelligence, enterprise-facing apps stores and in-memory technologies.
Gartner analysts presented their Top 10 list during this month’s Gartner Symposium/Itxpo.
“These top 10 technologies will be strategic for most organizations, and IT leaders should use this list in their strategic planning process by reviewing the technologies and how they fit into their expected needs,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner fellow, in a statement.
In fact, the latest list of 2012 top technologies and trends could prove “strategic,” because over the next three years they could: (a) disrupt long-term IT (or business) plans, (b) require companies make a major financial investment, or (c) put companies at risk of adopting these technology too late.
Notable among Gartner’s Top 10 strategic technologies for 2012 are:
- Next Steps in Cloud Computing. Still in early days, cloud computing is on the rise, according to Gartner’s report. In 2012, enterprise IT will begin to focus more on “hybrid” clouds, bringing together external public cloud services and internal private cloud services. The key here will be more options to secure, manage and govern end-to-end operations across an on-premise and public cloud. Private cloud projects will mature to bring operations and development groups closer together using “DevOps” concepts in order to approach the speed and efficiencies of public cloud service providers, Gartner added.
- Enterprises Mobile. IT will need two mobile strategies—one to address the business to employee (B2E) scenario and one to address the business to consumer (B2C) scenario. As part of this focus, Gartner advised IT to be prepared to embrace smartphone tablets and other devices. Beyond devices, IT will get more involved with what it called “Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces. UIs will change in 2012, Gartner said, to the point that “traditionally UIs with windows, icons, menus, and pointers will be replaced by mobile-centric interfaces emphasizing touch, gesture, search, voice and video.” The trend will continue for years, so that by 2015 mobile web technologies will enable applications that would be written as native apps in 2011 to be delivered as web apps.
- BI, Big Data and Next-Generation Analytics. “Analytics is beginning to shift to the cloud to leverage cloud resources for high performance and grid computing,” Gartner said. One implication will be that big data, which promotes huge growth in data, will let users distribute useful data beyond a single data warehouse and set the stage for “logical data warehouses” to bring together information from multiple data sources.
- In-Memory Computing. In-memory application platforms include in-memory analytics, event processing platforms, in-memory application servers, in-memory data management and in-memory messaging. According to Gartner, in 2012 and 2013, the in-memory approach will become more prevalent as the cost and availability of memory intensive hardware platforms increase.
- App Stores and Marketplaces. By 2014, Gartner predicts there will be more than 70 billion mobile apps downloaded from app stores every year—turning a consumer-only phenomena to one focused on the enterprise. That means enterprises should focus on app store efforts and segment apps by risk and value.
Among its other Top 10 technologies for 2012, Gartner listed: extreme low-energy servers, context aware computing, social media and expansion of internet-based networks for devices or what Gartner called the “Internet of Things.”
