Top technologies for 2009

The growth in technologies over the year has been amazing, and next year looks even better. Here are the top 10. DAVID MARKUS

By David Markus

Recently Gartner published its list of top 10 technologies for 2009. I have grabbed last year’s list and this year’s list and give you both for a comparison. I have then added a short comment on what each means to us in the SME arena.

Gartner’s 2008 list

1. Green IT
2. Unified communications
3. Business process management
4. Metadata management
5. Virtualisation
6. Mashups
7. The web platform
8. Computing fabric
9. Real world web
10. Social software

Gartner’s 2009 list

1. Virtualisation. This has leapt up the list as it is extending beyond just server virtualisation and offers the best solutions for cost reduction and hardware consolidation, thus reducing real estate requirements, power used and environmental impact. In 2009 virtualisation is hitting storage and desktops as well. For the SME marketplace there will be scaled down versions that help.

2. Cloud computing. Also rated the most hyped of the technologies on the list, this will begin to change rules as hardware is no longer needed to access software, changing business processes and making companies leaner and faster. Cloud computing is moving beyond SAAS into entire servers and storage in the cloud. I will be writing about this a lot in 2009. Send your questions in now.

3. Computing fabrics. This concept is for the big boys with very expensive computers where they can shift applications from processor to processor and select the memory and storage required dynamically on a super computer that is shared by multiple applications and platforms. We don’t need to give this one too much thought.

4. Web-oriented architecture. Good news for all of us that are not web developers is that this is a set of rules on how web stuff should be done and the rest of us can leave it to them as work with it. If you are a web developer, look it up.

5. Enterprise mashups. This is more a use of technology than a technology in its self. Mashups may have an impact for us if we are web savvy and want to use information on the web inside our business applications. The simplest example of a mashup is the programming of our CRM address book to open an on-line street directory showing the address.

6. Specialised systems. This is talking about purpose built boxes for storage or security or web filtering. A specialised system does just one thing – it may be programmable but its generally set and forget. We probably have one in our business but we may be adding more in 2009 as cost effective solutions for specific problems like spam filtering.

7. Social software and social networking. We may well see more use of tools like LinkedIn and Facebook for jobs such as recruiting, sales and marketing in 2009. Well worth thinking about for cost savings in communicating with a mass of people you do not know yet.

8. Unified communications. This has slipped for the enterprise list but I am confident that it is much higher up the list for SME companies who have not yet updated phone systems to take advantage of this technology.

9. Business intelligence. Only the larger SME companies will have the means to extend business intelligence by applying BI analytics into their business processes. Not one for most of us to worry about just yet, although I believe it will create great value for those that use it.

10. Green IT. In my opinion this one needs to be pushed back up the list to number one, as we face so many environmental issues with the way IT is run today. Refer to my previous articles on Ewaste and green house gas emissions.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne’s IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

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