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Manufacturers need to consider future IT predictions
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01/02/2008
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By 2012, 80% of business application software will include elements of open-source technology, and at least one-third of it will be provided as a service subscription, rather than product license.
That’s one of the 100 or so predictions from IT analyst Gartner for the coming years. The organisation says it’s releasing its future gazing thoughts to highlight areas where executives and IT professionals may need to take action during 2008, although the full impact of these trends may not appear for some time.
Gartner notes that many open-source technologies are mature, stable and well supported, and that they provide significant opportunities for vendors and users to cut their costs and increase returns on investment.
“Ignoring this will put companies at a serious competitive disadvantage. Embedded open source strategies will become the minimal level of investment that most large software vendors will find necessary to maintain competitive advantages during the next five years,” says a Gartner spokesperson.
As for software as service (SaaS), Gartner notes that it’s already endorsed and promoted by all leading business applications vendors, such as Oracle, SAP and Microsoft, as well as many web technology leaders. “The SaaS model of deployment and distribution of software services will enjoy steady growth in mainstream use during the next five years,” says Gartner. .
Other key predictions: by 2011, early technology adopters will also forgo capital expenditures on their IT infrastructure as well, with 40% going for a service approach here too; by next year, more than one third of IT organisations will have one or more environmental criteria in their top six buying criteria for IT-related goods; by 2010, 75% of organisations will use full lifecycle energy and CO2 footprint as mandatory PC hardware buying criteria; and by 2012, 50% of mobile workers will leave =notebooks at home in favour of new Internet-centric pocket devices at the sub-$400 level.
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Author
Brian Tinham
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