RFID, VoIP and podcasting in list of emerging technologies
RFID, VoIP and podcasting in list of emerging technologies
Aug 24, 2005: Gartner has attempted to divide the hype from the reality by highlighting a number of emerging technologies that it believes will take a positive lead into the future of the ICT industry.
Gartner's 2005 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies has assessed the maturity, impact and adoption speed of 44 technologies and trends over the coming decade.
It aims to focus on the progression of an emerging technology from conception, to market over-enthusiasm, through a period of disillusionment, to an eventual understanding of the technology 's relevance and role in a market or domain.
Alexander Linden, the research vice president at Gartner, said that the IT industry is awash with hype and buzz words and Gartner's Emerging Technologies Hype Cycles cuts through this to offer an independent overview of the relative maturity of technologies in any given domain.
"It provides not only a scoreboard to separate hype from reality, but also models that help enterprises to decide when they should adopt a new technology. For technologies that will have lower impact on your business, let others learn the difficult lessons, then adopt the technologies when they are more mature.
"It's less a matter of don't believe the hype and more a case of do believe the hype but only in the wider context of the market place, potential applications and ultimately the relevance to your business today and tomorrow."
Gartner has identified six collaboration technologies, designed to improve productivity and transform business practices, which it believes will be worth watching as they develop. These include Podcasting, Peer-to-Peer voice over IP, Desktop Search, Really Simple Syndication, Corporate Blogging and Wikis.
Wikis are simple, text-based collaborative systems for managing hyperlinked collections of web pages; it usually enables users to change pages or comments created by other users. Wikis are becoming available from commercial vendors, in addition to many open-sourced products.
As far as Next Generation Architecture goes, Gartner believes that Service Oriented Architecture, Web Services-Enabled Business Models, Extensible Business Reporting Language and Business Process Platforms will constitute the third big era in the IT industry's history (the first having been the hardware era and the second belongs to software).
In addition, Gartner believes that adding networking, sensing and processing to real-world objects and places is creating a 'Real-World-Web' of information that will enhance business and personal decision-making.
Location-aware applications, Radio Frequency Identification and Mesh Networks - Sensor, were identified as the technologies that will drive this space.
As advice, Gartner suggested that organisations should not invest in a technology just because it is being hyped or ignore a technology just because it is not living up to early over expectations because if a technology fits with the overall business strategy, then it should be evaluating it from the outset. In addition, if the organisation is unsure, they should wait until more research is available.
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