Gartner Reveals Top 10 Technologies For Next 4 Years

Dr. Jim writes "The good folks over at the Gartner Group have revealed the top 10 technologies that they believe will change the world over the next four years. The usual suspects including multi-core chips, virtualization, and cloud computing are on the list. Multicore servers and virtualization will mean that firms will need fewer boxes, and apps can be easily moved from box to box (and right out the door to an outsourced data center). Workplace social networks and cloud computing means that the need for a centralized IT department will go away. Firms will no longer need to own/maintain the boxes that they use to run their firm's apps. With no need to touch a box, there will be no need to have the IT staff co-located with the boxes."

Forgetting one thing

[TJ_Phazerhacki (520002)]

Right. Completely virtualize and decentralize your environment. Save money! Work faster!

What security?

Re:

[jellomizer (103300)]

Cloud Computing while a cool CS Concept and can be used in some cases. The fact that most apps are single threaded design will not gain any benefit from this and most companies don't need that level computing power. They would wast money and get small benefit. Unless they do some massive computing.

Re:Forgetting one thing

[laddhebert (570948)]

Cloud Computing while a cool CS Concept and can be used in some cases. The fact that most apps are single threaded design will not gain any benefit from this and most companies don't need that level computing power. They would wast money and get small benefit. Unless they do some massive computing.

I had to reply to this.

If you have a shop that has a very large compute farm that runs exclusively, batch jobs, then you can clearly understand where cloud computing can be a tremendous advantage. A lot of users of batch compute resources find creative ways to serialize and/or parallelize their overall process using scripts, multiple hosts, dependencies, etc. With cloud computing, all of this can be implemented automatically.

That's a huge time and cost saver right there alone. Additionally, with our cloud computing solution (Electric Cloud), we get an additional advantage with the built in virtualization that comes along with the system. In the old days, we were forced to manage multiple development build stacks to satisfy the needs of multiple business units or departments. Now, we manage a cloud of hosts that are baseline installs, with bare minimal configurations, and the submit host's environment is replicated to the cloud nodes when a build is kicked off. This saves money on hardware resources, hardware resources, engineering resources, etc.

You may think, well, most developers use the same build stack or tool stack - but that's an assumption that has been proven incorrect time and time again where I work. We work with embedded device developers and they have a very specific tool stack requirement, with specific versions, or may need a pristine build environment without the possibility of conflicts from various packages that may be installed on the build host.

/-l

Re:Forgetting one thing

[Maint_Pgmr_3 (769003)]

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=530109 [gartner.com] for the real thing

He left off a word!!!!

[Maint_Pgmr_3 (769003)]

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=681107 [gartner.com] "Gartner Identifies Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012"

Re:Forgetting one thing

[Lord Ender (156273)]

It is true that virtualization technology allows businesses to do more IT functions with less IT staff. But it is also true that businesses are doing increasingly more IT functions all the time. So long as these factor balance each other out, IT will maintain its relatively low unemployment rate and its relatively high payscale.

However, if this balance tips, companies will benefit while IT staff loses. I consider this a possible future scenario, so I live well within my means and use a large percentage of my salary to buy ownership positions in those very companies that stand to profit from my obsolesce. That way, even if I lose in one way I win in another.

The stock market really is an amazing force for blurring the line between the working class and the ownership class, and I take full advantage of this power.

Re:Forgetting one thing

[Bandman (86149)]

It is true that virtualization technology allows businesses to do more IT functions with less IT staff.

Actually I think it allows businesses to do more IT functions with less hardware. The staff still have to manage it. Otherwise you have an excellent strategy for retirement :-)

Misleading summary; lean blog post

[bbasgen (165297)]

  The article summary quotes a blog posting, *NOT* the Gartner study. Further, the blog posting only quotes the top ten items from Gartner, and provides no further data.

  The blogger is passing around FUD, without supporting those statements with any information from Gartner. This is a non-article with so little data.

Re:

[LMacG (118321)]

> The article summary quotes a blog posting

Well of course it does. The submitter is the blogger, who must have needed some page hits for some reason. That's the second reason I didn't RTF(blog). The first is the name "Gartner" who will, of course, say anything as long as you're paying them enough.

Re:Misleading summary; lean blog post

[thanatos_x (1086171)]

I've read more than a few of their full tech summaries on the emerging trends, both by industry and year.

Generally from year to year half the items would disappear from the lists (even though they were supposed to cover the next 5-10 years). In addition another quarter would randomly move about the "You'll see this technology in X years".

Most of the rest were so obvious that it really wasn't worth mentioning, an up to speed person would have known that. Wireless will be big in the future (published 2005ish)? No way!

The descriptions given for a technology(typically 2-3 paragraphs) were filled with jargon, and not terribly useful. Reading Popular Science and Mechanics was about as useful and far cheaper.

So yes, the lesson is that you can't buy innovation or management skills for a company by spending 20,000 a year, but you can make a nice sum pretending to sell it.

Re:

[laddhebert (570948)]

Most of the rest were so obvious that it really wasn't worth mentioning, an up to speed person would have known that. Wireless will be big in the future (published 2005ish)? No way!

The best part is that the Gartner reports I've seen ususally cost about $400 and probably average 8-10 pages. Not worth it in my opinion but then again for corporations who believe Gartner reports are prophecy I guesz $400 for a multi-billion dollar company isn't a big deal.

Right, in a large corporation, when a new tool or application is brought in, it usually has to go through an architectural review, a readiness review, and various other reviews. One thing corporations like to know is whether or not the company that they are about to dump $10k per seat (much, much more in a lot of cases, I'm just throwing that number out there) license on is going to be around in 5 years when the corporation is neck deep in the implementation of that product. This is where the Gartner group

Re:Misleading summary; lean blog post

[antifoidulus (807088)]

The blogger is passing around FUD, without supporting those statements with any information from Gartner.

And this is different from stuff actually by Gartner how? This is Gartner we are talking about, so if they did publish such a study, a more accurate title might be, "Top 10 technologies we have a vested financial interest in promoting"

Let me be the first to say

[moderatorrater (1095745)]

'Duh'. Multicore processing? Are you fucking kidding me? You have to go out of your way to buy a computer that doesn't have multiple cores. Hybrid core? Wouldn't that be covered with the video cards opening up and letting generic code run on their processors? The rest are completely obvious in the same way. Anyone who's been watching computers for the past year could have compiled that list.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[TooMuchToDo (882796)]

The rest are completely obvious in the same way. Anyone who's been watching computers for the past year could have compiled that list.

You've just summed up most Gartner reports. =)

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Reverend528 (585549)]

You've just summed up most Gartner reports. =)

Not everything they say is completely obvious. Remember when they told people to delay linux deployments until the SCO case was settled [slashdot.org]. Of course, that turned out to be terrible advice, but it was non-obvious.

Re:

[Chris Burke (6130)]

Of course, that turned out to be terrible advice, but it was non-obvious.

Ha! Amazing the subtle difference between "obvious advice" and "obviously bad advice". :)

Re:

[Rinisari (521266)]

The hardware is there, yes, but the software is not. Not many applications are multithreaded/multiprocess.

Re:

[arktemplar (1060050)]

Well I'm not sure about how they have used hybrid cores, but try multicores with one core being an - on the fly reconfigurable FPGA' these kind of things would be so totally awesome if used properly. I think IBM is moving along similar lines for it's CELL series, there may be a tie-up with Xilinx involved - that I'm not so sure of, but it can be used most interestingly.

And is not all that obvious to most of the people who are just keeping up with computers rather than computing.

Re:

[chthon (580889)]

It looks to me a solution with the same problems as microprogramming : looks good in theory, but too many strings attached in practice.

One of the biggest obstacles I see is the fact that this FPGA does not run on its own : you need several interfaces (hard and soft) to the chip.

• A programming interface
• A data exchange interface (byte or block oriented ? or maybe both)
• A driver of course, based upon the above byte or block oriented interface
• An application library, containing the code to reprogram the FPGA

Re:

[Red Flayer (890720)]

Anyone who's been watching computers for the past year could have compiled that list.

Duh. Gartner's target readers are not people who've been watching computers for the past year. Gartner's targets are the people who pay other people to watch computers, so that those people can pretend to know what they are talking about when they discuss new technologies with their minions.

That's for generic articles like this one; Gartner does some targeted research and analysis that's better, particularly if you pay a

Re:Let me be the first to say

[afabbro (33948)]

'Duh'

Gartner is mainly known for two things:

• "Duh"
• Being wrong.

Oh, and charging a lot. cf. Cringley's fine column on Gartner. [pbs.org]

With high gas prices...

[meglon (1001833)]

"Firms will no longer need to own/maintain the boxes that they use to run their firm's apps. With no need to touch a box, there will be no need to have the IT staff co-located with the boxes."

...and in further news: Rocks, Paper, Scissors poised for a comeback as non-IT personal try to establish who it is that has travel half way across the continent to push the "on" button.

Nothing to see here

[Kohath (38547)]

If you make your predictions vague enough, they have a good chance of being correct (for generous interpretations of correct).

I predict the next 4 years in technology is going to be similar to this year. This will end up being correct for generous definitions of "similar".

Re:

[Gat0r30y (957941)]

Its like the horoscope - Augmented reality? Dude, I know I'll be getting high in the next four years, but seriously, I don't see how that's any of IT's business.

From TFA

[by Anonymous Coward]

1. Multicore and hybrid processors
2. Virtualization and fabric computing
3. Social networks and social software
4. Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
5. Web mashups
6. User Interface
7. Ubiquitous computing
8. Contextual computing
9. Augmented reality
10. Semantics

IT envisioned as "truckers and longshoremen"

[PoliTech (998983)]

In an article describing Microsoft's mainstream containerized data centers (named "C-Blox") Microsoft general manager of data center services Michael Manos says his vision of the future of IT is IT workers who look more like "truckers and longshoremen than traditional IT workers". [informationweek.com]

So are we now to believe that a "truckers and longshoremen" skills shortage shows need for an increase of the 85,000 H-1B visas already available?

Re:

[DAldredge (2353)]

Quote mining for the win! "In the C-blox world, a truck drops off a data center container and then picks it up again in a few years when Microsoft is ready to switch over to new hardware. Administrators will only enter the physical C-blox in the rarest of occasions. "In that sense, your IT workers look more like truckers and longshoremen than traditional IT workers," Manos said. It will also allow Microsoft to run the entire Northlake facility with a continuous staff of little more than 20 or 30 employees.

Re:

[Bandman (86149)]

Please connect 1MW power source here -->
Please connect 1MW generator here -->
Please connect OC-192 here -->

Not the case...

[HaloZero (610207)]

Workplace social networks and cloud computing means that the need for a centralized IT department will go away.

But borne from the ashes of the 'centralized IT department' come the 'social networking support department'. Because no matter how intuitive you make it, someone won't get it. That fact, combined with the problem that the larger your corporation becomes, the more obfuscated every little thing is (I work for GE).

Contextual Computing is hilarious

[AtariDatacenter (31657)]

Anyone remember the guy who's TiVo started recording a lot of gay movies? "My TiVo thinks I'm gay!"

There is a lot of room to make big mistakes in this area of computing. Contextual Computing can lead to hilarious failures.

High-level, better-trained IT workers opportunity!

[compumike (454538)]

While the article and summary want to scare IT workers ("Oh, oh -- can you hear your job going away?"), perhaps it's time to get back to the big picture: Information Technology is supposed to help people do their jobs more efficiently. So, while the article does much to suggest that server-side stuff might be getting "outsourced" to the cloud, people still need to interface with it. It'd be nice to see client systems taking steps forward in terms of reliability and ease of use, but nothing monumental is changing on that side of the equation.

But, by outsourcing/concentrating the server-side administration to the "cloud", you might free up IT workers to do less grunt work and do more in terms of process innovations, making the whole enterprise more efficient. IT workers will have to think about how they can make the business operate more efficiently, and be creative and get it implemented. Are today's IT workers ready for that level of thinking?

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! [nerdkits.com]

Re:

[jellomizer (103300)]

Unforntunaly not most. And espectially IT managers.

IT Departments tend to work on keeping things running and less time analysing the buisness needs and seeing how IT can help improve it. In places that have such departments they companies run very well. When they focus on keeping things running... Things just fail.

Re:High-level, better-trained IT workers opportuni

[zappepcs (820751)]

Not only that, and you do make a hugely valid point, but all this IT infrastructure is ... well, it would grind office productivity to a halt if the printer is broken. Despite all the hardware, the paperless office has not yet taken off in any meaningful way. When the connection between your desktop and the printer is through a router that is on the other side of the country, and it takes 2 hours to get it working, productivity will drop significantly. To simply bleat on about moving the data center out into the cloud is blindly spewing PR like the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

Much like outsourcing has come to be more expensive, so too will 'outsourcing' your data center. I'm sure that we've all heard of DDoS attacks. How convenient will they become when your data is on the other side of a router from your workers? Yeah, the SLAs sound good on paper, but oat 4:30 on a Friday of a long weekend, when your billing processes grind to a halt, how long will it take to get fixed? My personal favorite is the data center people telling me it is an application error. The billing department is telling me that their application is giving an error that a server can't be found. My code says that there is a permission problem on a network directory, and no one left in the data center has admin rights on that box.

Yep, this outsourcing thing will work out well.

What was that old saying? If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself? Sometimes it is true, ya know?

Re:

[countSudoku() (1047544)]

Bingo! That's more correct than most IT managers would ever realize. Outsourcing is just that; too expensive and even more work than to keep it in-house. I've personally seen two, local, big corp data centers get sucked into the "let's let do this and save on our expensive in-house help!" Worked out great in both situations. One company scared off any good talent and got a name around the area as a lame data center to work for, plus they're paying through the nose for their administration now! They w

Re:

[chthon (580889)]

as always : out-sourcing or off-shoring ? Our IT department consists of only a couple of in-house people, the rest is out-sourced. However, these out-sourced people are always on-site, so this does nor make a difference in head count, only in bookkeeping strategy.

Re:High-level, better-trained IT workers opportuni

[pla (258480)]

IT workers will have to think about how they can make the business operate more efficiently, and be creative and get it implemented.

Puh-lease. Today's IT workers can't get our users to access network file shares rather than filling the mail spool with the same attachments (And a million revisions thereof) over and over and over... And in the few cases I've seen where people (always at least "engineers", not just your typical office staff) do use a NAS, they constantly come asking for help when they try to send outside contacts links to internal files. It seems that people have some sort of mental wall around the ideas of "local" and "not local", with no middle-ground possible. And god forbid you actually make such access secure - Users will actually burn CDs and pass them back and forth rather than even attempt to navigate the simplest of login prompts.

So no, I don't worry about finding myself unneeded any time soon - Regardless of how easy the technology gets to use, the actual users still won't get it. And they'll need us to help them get that 10.1MB file (that the email system keeps rejecting) to Fred in Accounting - Who will then need our help opening the file.

Old!

[neokushan (932374)]

Cloud computing is already here, Valve invented it this morning!

On another note, an unknown company is bringing out a sewing application that promises to push multithreading to it's limits.

Re:

[grommit (97148)]

Sources say that the unknown company is Singer.

Outsourced information will come back

[Opportunist (166417)]

No later than when companies notice that suddenly, surprisingly someone patents something they were on the verge of patenting themselves, when they notice that said company is somehow curiously located where their servers are.

I guess even our business captains know that putting information into hands you can't control is a BAD idea. They should know. They've been gathering ours for years, and they know what value even trivial information (like your shopping habits) has.

Troubleshooting Step #1

[dcollins (135727)]

Client: I can't login.
Troubleshooting Step #1: Make sure it's plugged in.

Ergo, there will always be a need for IT staff co-located with the boxes.

Something Old, Something New

[Gonoff (88518)]

Some/most of these things exist already, some of them are in use and relevant. Others are just excuses for avoiding work.

1. Most of us have unused processor cores. Multicore is a great idea. Does this mean that someone might actually start writing software that uses them?
2. We have an ever increasing number of virtual servers. Fabric computing might make for a better PDA or iPod but I can't see it being used in office environments for workers. Mostly for IT techs and Suits
3. Handy for Sales Weasels but not business related for most of us.
4. In use already. Many of us use web apps but they have yet to hit the big time. Possible...
5. I can believe this one.
6. Yes, computers will continue to have user interfaces...
7. My phone is ubiqutous. I can believe that I will have a decent PC on me at all times.
8. Needs more work to show me what that means. In the meantime - a buzzword.
9. Overlays on the inside of my glasses? In some fields. HUDs for the masses.
10. Another buzzword and needs clarification to me anyway

Centralized IT isn't going away

[lamontg (121211)]

Cloud computing doesn't make centralized IT go away.

Amazon EC2 only provides you with servers. You still need system admins to configure and run and debug the boxes if you're doing anything remotely complicated.

It does solve provisioning issues, procurement issues and lights-out management. But that is just a sliver of centralized IT.

And having Amazon provide "remote hands" for you to replace failed hardware is not even a "centralized" part of IT. Even without cloud computing you shouldn't have your IT organization tightly coupled to where your sites are. All that you need is the occasional physical hardware replacement, and management of the facilities (power, cooling, etc).

Re:

[Eponymous Bastard (1143615)]

But half the companies out there aren't actually doing anything complicated.

I've been looking at open source ERP solutions (ERP5, Adempiere, etc.) and it makes me wonder whether you could set up a company that configures and manages servers and ERP systems. The actual boxes could be at your place or elsewhere.

Basically, you can offer companies a complete package for HR, order management, invoicing, payroll, etc. without them having to hire a single extra person. You'd have to have a clause in the contract t

Re:Centralized IT isn't going away

[lamontg (121211)]

"But half the companies out there aren't actually doing anything complicated."

Well, I'm responding to a very strong statement saying that cloud computing will "make centralized IT go away". And while it may do so for small business, which needs a couple dozen servers to run some "web 2.0" apps or a storefront or whatever, I doubt it will have much of an impact on the IT staffs at S&P 500 companies.

If you look closely at Amazon's SLAs as well, they aren't going to be acceptable to most large companies. Financial institutions might be able to outsource some offline batch analysis and model crunching to EC2, but their online transactional processing that needs just stupid reliability isn't going to be transferable to Amazon's cloud.

You are correct though that by sheer number, most companies are small and most companies don't have very complicated IT needs. However, "cloud computing will make centralied IT go away" is just silly if you've got a background at centralized IT at large companies.

There will still be a lot of IT out there, it may just be bigger IT, and some of the small IT may be eliminated, or it may turn contract work.

Uh, Excuse me!

[Master of Transhuman (597628)]

"Firms will no longer need to own/maintain the boxes that they use to run their firm's apps. With no need to touch a box, there will be no need to have the IT staff co-located with the boxes."

How do you access the "cloud" without a computer next to you?

You have DSL embedded in your brain?

Get a clue. Companies may not have conventional desktop PCs in their offices, but they're going to have to have SOME sort of computing device - if nothing but a thin client or even just a flat screen terminal or a BlackBerry - to access the computing resources.

And those devices need servicing - if not much servicing.

Anybody who thinks computers are leaving offices is so frickin' deluded I don't know what to say.

Not to mention that your IT staff exists mostly to solve the problems with the SOFTWARE - not the hardware. And software problems aren't going away regardless of whether it's on the desk, on a server, or in the cloud.

Who deals with those problems may change. Companies may very well outsource their IT support - I am the outsource for my clients - but all that means is they'll pay more for less (except in my case, 'cause I'm cheap.) Their overall cost may go down, but in many cases they'll get poorer service because the IT staff servicing their problems isn't a member of the company or on site and thus has less comprehension of the company's needs. There's nothing like being on site and in daily contact with the staff to see what a company's problems are.

for low values of "change the world"

[bsDaemon (87307)]

I fail to see how social networks or multicore CPUs have "changed the world" or will. I would think that advances in energy efficient hardware, "green" power generation, hydroponic and other greenhouse technologies (to allow for year-round, local production of food even in places where the climate is totally lame) would be more likely to "change the world," and are things that people actually NEED to happen.

No one NEEDs Facebook. I'm actively considering deleting my account, personally. No one is going t

cloud computing is latest buzzword

[alen (225700)]

back in 2002 it was called web services, then it was web 2.0 and a few other things. the 2008 name is cloud computing. come early 2009 they will make up another name to hype at the conventions and get eyeballs to tech news websites

Augmented reality

[Archangel Michael (180766)]

what the hell is "Augmented reality"??

The only thing I could come up with is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek) [slashdot.org]>this

Is it "more real than real"?

Or is it just the latest buzzword to describe something nobody has thought of yet?

I'm completely stumped, really I am.

Intersting

[geekoid (135745)]

wasn't the internet suppose to do a lot of that stuff?

User Interface? Semantics?

[faust2097 (137829)]

At #7 they have "user interface" listed like it's some technology you can buy. Same with "semantics" at #10.

Some poor IT guy is going to have a lot of complicated explaining to do when the CIO pounds his fist on his desk and yells "go get us some user interface and semantics!"