HorizonWatching

Gartner: Five Major Disruptive Trends

Gartner recently announced here they are tracking five major trends that they believe will force IT organizations to change the way they procure and manage Information Technology. 

The five major trends and Gartners description of them are as follows:

• Web 2.0 - "Web 2.0 communities are bonding people in ways many people do not fully understand.  Community members are doing business in ways that most enterprises had never even considered as they laid out their communications strategies." 
• Software as a service (SaaS) - "SaaS is already empowering business units to act independently of corporate IT strategies."
• Global-class computing - "Global-class systems, built on tera-architectures (as in Google Apps), threaten to upset the careful balance of power between IBM and Microsoft in messaging, and more importantly, they introduce entirely new ways to implement and scale applications."
• The Consumerization of IT - "Consumerisation and users’ clamour for IT organisations to be as responsive as internet vendors are giving many IT departments headaches." 
• Open-source software - "Open source is a hidden "secret" that enables many elements of the other four discontinuities to develop."

Nothing really earth shattering here, but it is important to think about each one individually and the impact they have on IT departments.

Gartner analysts discussed these disruptive trends during their Orlando version of their Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2007, which took place October 7-12, 2007.  They are also apparently planning on focusing on these trends during the next version of their symposium, which takes place 4-8 November in Cannes, France.  You can read up more about this symposium series here.

So this press release/announcement was, in part, an advertisement for people to attend the conference.  However, each of the trends do have merit and we are, of course, already seeing these trends today.   And when you consider the combination of all of the trends happening together, you can make a very good case that IT managers who oversee applications will have their work cut out for themselves as they develop short and long term plans.

For more information, you can read the press release regarding the above major trends. 

Emerging Technology Innovations In HealthCare and Life Sciences

IBM issued a press release about 3 weeks ago titled  "IBM Unveils Top Technology Innovations That Will Shape the Future of Healthcare and Life Sciences Over the Next Decade".  Perhaps you missed it too.  Here is a summary.

IBM announced a series of emerging innovations that have the potential to dramatically shift the landscape of healthcare and life sciences solutions for patients, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and the general public. These innovations are based on new research breakthroughs and emerging technologies from IBM's Labs as well as through a legacy of storage, server and technology innovation and deep roots in the healthcare industry.

Over the next five to ten years, IBM predicts that the healthcare industry will experience radical shifts brought about by the following trends and technology innovations:

• Secure sharing of patient data:  As we move toward the universality of electronic health records, the secure sharing of patient information and the interoperability of systems across regions, countries and the world become increasingly important. 
• Fully-informed diagnosis:  The ability to share information among doctors, health care providers and hospitals will enable clinicians to compare records and diagnoses while preserving patient privacy, paving the way to faster, more comprehensive care 
• Speeding drugs to market:  Advances in data mining and analysis will enable the development of targeted therapeutic drugs and medical treatments. 
• Stemming the spread of pandemics:  New modeling tools will allow public health decision-makers to quickly identify and potentially prevent the spread of pandemics.

More information is available in the press release.  I can think of some others that did not make the list, like performance metrics, benefit/payment process transformation, human augmentation, robotic surgery, and simulation applications. 

Eight Technologies on Gartner's Emerging Trend Radar Screen

Last week Gartner unveiled its emerging trends outlook for technologies at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando.  Unfortunately for me, my company's department does not have money to send me to these types of events.  Lucky for me, however, is I can usually find out about what was presented by surfing the many blogs that I do.  In this case, I found an article posted over at ZDNet's blog called Between the Lines. 

According to the Between the Lines blog post here, Jackie Fenn, an analyst at Gartner, presented a list of emerging technologies to watch...some of them are around today but just haven’t hit prime time.  I was personally interested in their list of emerging technologies that are more than 10 years off.   Here they are...

• The Real World Web:  Gartner is forecasting that today's web transforms into a personal agent that basically tells users what they need to know proactively.  Important enabling technologies will be wireless technology, sensors, location and semantic technologies. 
• Virtual worlds and social software:  Gartner believes that Virtual worlds need to get easier before they become more mainstream.  Integration with social software will be key and visible presence, open communications and personalization will make these technologies keepers. 
• User interface advancements:  Gartner believes there is a bunch of stuff in the labs yet to come out, but the focus will be towards touch technologies.  Look also for new displays that will offer 3D, be flexible and project over large areas. 
• Personal manufacturing and fabbing:   Gartner believes there is an emerging mass market for 3D printers not only for business, but for consumers. 
• Mobile robots:  Gartner believes robots will increasingly be used for lifting and rescue operations, healthcare and human companionship. 
• Human augmentation:   Look for technology to play an important part in implants, brain interfaces, genetic selection and nerve to prosthesis applications.  Think: bionic man and bionic woman. 
• Collective intelligence:  Gartner believes corporations will turn to new innovative business models based off of crowdsourcing, open source, prediction markets and user ratings.  . 
• Extreme meritocracy:   Gartner sees the day when performance metrics, based on peer reviews and feedback, will be available on any company and any person.

Read on each of these here.  Of these, I think the 3D printing and social software are the two technologies that will happen before the rest.  What do you think? 

Top 10 Emerging Market Multinationals

I read an article that Newsweek published over the weekend providing a list of top 10 multinational companies from emerging markets that will likely have a strong impact on the global economy.  Newsweek had asked Antoine van Agtmael, who coined the term "emerging markets" in 1981 and runs the $25 billion Emerging Markets Management Fund, to develop this list.  Here is the list (Note:  All URL links point to english websites)

1.  Samsung Electronics - South Korea.  A well known global brand is beating Sony at their own game.  Samsung has a huge R&D budget and is the market share leader in flat screens. 

2.  Hyundai Motor -  South Korea.   This global manufacturer of automobiles has plants in the U.S., China, India, and Korea.  An emerging force in the industry, Hyundai last year passed Toyota in the J.D. Power car quality survey.   

3.  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) - Taiwan.   A high volume producer of wafers for logic semiconductors, TSMC’s plants are state-of-the-art with the lowest break-even operating level in its industry.

4. Hon Hai -Taiwan.  While not a common household name, this high volume contract electronic manufacturer makes things everyone is using worldwide, including laptops for Dell, Playstations for Sony, handsets for Nokia,  iPods for Apple and numerous other everyday electronics.

5. Lenovo - China.  We all know the story here.  Lenovo is the largest computer brand in the fast-growing Chinese market and it will no doubt have huge impact on the global economy.

6. Infosys - India.   One of the large emerging Indian service companies, Infosys leverages the huge pool of cheap brainpower coming out of India's elite technology institutes.

7. Cemex - Mexico.  Cemex is the world's third-largest cement producer.  They are in acquisition mode and therefore are expected to become even bigger.      

8. CVRD - Brazil.  CVRD is a global mining giant with interests in manganese, iron ore, nickel and copper that is currently focused on acquiring smaller companies in local countries.

9. Embraer -  Brazil.  Embraer is the world's fourth largest airplane manufacturer.  It has accurately forecasted the increase in demand for regional jets and is capitalizing on that trend.

10. Grupo Modelo - Mexico.   A fast growing brewer of beers, including the popular Corona brand, this company is expanding into other countries.

Antoine van Agtmael's recent book "The Emerging Markets Century" (Free Press, 2007) goes into detail how the emerging market countries are churning out these large multinationals.   The Newsweek article was found at:: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21051211/site/newsweek/