Life changing technology here in three years - Gartner
Life changing technology here in three years - Gartner
The full power of information technology will be unleashed and again change our lives within three years - that's the prediction of Gartner's head of Asia/Pacific research, Jamie Popkin.
A "massive wave" of innovation will be felt across society from 2006 to 2009, resulting in huge productivity gains at work and a dramatically digitised home life, Popkin will forecast at next week's Gartner's Symposium and ITxpo.
Many homes will have a digital media centre as the Net and entertainment merge, moving from the study or bedroom into the living room. Dramatic improvements in compression and network technologies will create the ability to receive live video at any time.
It will also be impossible to buy any device without a wireless application and electronic paper will finally become viable for industry and consumers.
Popkin said these exciting yet tumultuous days would only come once the industry had got its head around a number of problems that exist today, including prohibitive cost, too many vendors selling the same thing, complex, fragile infrastructure, and too many failures to deliver measurable ROI on projects.
"The long-term outlook is very bright for the IT industry," he said. "Right now, we are seeing a sustainable recovery. Some sectors will grow quickly but others will be flat at best.
"The most enduring short-term trend is consolidation of vendors, especially in software. This will result in a dramatic shift in advantage to the largest IT companies."
Companies which chose their IT partners well and adopted the right strategies would be ideally positioned for the next wave of IT demand from 2006, he said.
Four basic technology achievements would drive demand:
* Secure wireless broadband* Significantly lower power consumption of devices* Creation of a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA); and* Corporate adoption of the real-time enterprise philosophy
Popkin will tell his Symposium audience that these changes will have a profound effect on Western societies. Jobs will be lost yet productivity will increase, and entire industries might disappear or be replaced.
The future of technology, the IT and media industries, and their impact on our societies will be explored by Mr Popkin and a selection of Gartner analysts in the final presentation of the 11th Symposium/ITxpo at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney, from November 11-14.
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