I’ve developed my list of top Information Technology Trends for 2011 to add to the trend lists that are being published at this time of year. I came up with 11 trends this year on the list, rather than the customary ten.
The list below should not be a surprise to you all that much as most of the trends have been on my radar (and probably yours) for a number of years already. Some of them are more mature in their adoption and development than others. However, those that made my list are the trends that I feel will have the most impact on IT departments in 2011.
For each of the trends, I’ve provided a short discussion of trend and what developments I expect in 2011. I also provide you with links to sites where you can explore the trend topic in more detail. All the text makes for a long post, but I like sharing more information rather than less. With that in mind, here are the top IT technologies trends to watch in 2011.
1. Private Clouds
The cloud computing ‘buzz’ has been going on now for 3 years. Public clouds have been a major part of the discussion and experimentation. However, more companies have begun adopting approaches to private clouds in parts of their businesses. Many CIOs and business leaders are concerned with having their data residing outside their firewall. In 2011 I expect to see mid and large-sized businesses to increase their experimentation and implementation of private clouds as the promise of the cloud delivery model is one that is just too good to pass up. There’s also a growing interest in private ‘community clouds’ hosted for a group of organizations who trust each other. The largest hurdles to cloud computing continue to be a lack of cloud standards and concerns regarding security, availability and performance.
For more information
2. Virtualization
Virtualized infrastructures are becoming popular not only for cost savings, but because they can enable quick changes to business models, operating structures and the way that business processes are enabled. In addition, a highly virtualized infrastructure is a prerequisite for private clouds so CIOs will continue to focus on virtualization. Over the last 3-4 years we’ve seen server virtualization really take off as a trend and now it is almost standard technology in the data center. While security concerns remain a hurdle to deployment, we’ll continue to see a focus on virtualization across the entire infrastructure in 2011.
For more information
3. Social Business
Social collaboration is changing the way business is being conducted. Over the next 10-15 years, social computing capability will becomes part of every business function within the company. Social capabilities will become embedded in every single website, computing device for every participant in every single business transaction. All participants involved in a company’s business processes and transactions will have the ability to share content, comment on content, rate/vote on content, and collaborate in an open and sharing environment. In addition, all this social activity will generate data that will be mined and analyzed in both batch and in real-time. The insights generated will be a critical input into all business processes, including research, product development, marketing, sales, technical support, and even business processes like accounting, procurement, and legal. Since social will eventually be embedded in every business process and transaction workflow, social computing capability will need to be a critical part of every business application. As a result, I expect entire business application suites will be rewritten to make use of social collaboration features.
For more information
4. Mobile Computing
5 years ago, mobile meant something entirely different than it does today, thanks to the introduction of the smartphone, the Iphone, Google’s introduction of Android, and just this past year, the iPad. Mobile computing and the ecosystem that surrounds it is a major growth industry. As smartphone adoption grows and the application infrastructure becomes more sophisticated, mobile will expand beyond messaging, and make mobile email, mobile websites and mobile applications viable channels in which to conduct business. Enabling technologies will be new devices, faster networks, new location-aware technology, and improved mobile applications. Some key mobile trends to watch in 2011 include Location Based Services, Mobile Apps, Mobile Gaming, Event-Based Mobile Marketing, and Augmented Reality.
- Prediction that Smartphone Sales To Beat PC Sales By 2011 (see this)
- Mobile Web usage more than doubling YoY (see this)
For more information
5. Storage Trends
The huge growth of videos, pictures, audio, social media and other unstructured data is taxing the storage systems of many data centers. The cost of storage for most enterprises remains a high component of the overall cost of a datacenter, even though the cost of storage per gigabyte continues to drop. In addition other trends are impacting storage, including Cloud computing, virtualization, energy costs, economics and performance. In 2011, watch for increased adoption of storage technologies like data deduplication, flash, solid state disks and automating volume-level tiering.
For more information
6. Advanced Business Analytics
While information overload was once a barrier to good decision making, today’s technology and analytics expertise make it a real benefit. The explosion of data that is taxing storage systems is also driving the requirement for advanced business analytics. Business leaders are yearning for deeper knowledge and insights on all aspects of their business and they know that the information they need is available within all the data flowing through the company IT systems. Advanced analytics solutions can help business leaders adopt a proactive versus reactive strategy, enabling them to predict future behaviors and events before they occur. Insights generated can help business leaders optimize individual business decisions, processes and entire business models, as well as manage risk and fraud, with the goal of improving the development and delivery of products and services. In 2011 look for advancements in streaming technologies, mathematical algorithms and predictive modeling as applied to business analytic solutions.
For more information
7. The Personalized Web
Thanks to the explosion of social media, how users are influenced, consume information, and make purchasing decisions has been altered forever. Users are increasingly expecting company websites, products, and services to be tailored to their individual preferences, past experiences, and what they happen to be doing at this very moment. This puts the demand on business and IT leaders to create a personalized and engaging experience for end-users across all channels, both online and offline. In 2011, I expect business to focus on advanced solutions that can delivering a more personalized experience to end users. These solutions will be designed to mine the customer’s profile, buying behavior, browsing behavior and other insights obtained through marketing analytics in order to deliver a more customized and personalized online experience. Look for further improvements in technologies such as marketing analytics and predictive algorithms that can automatically deliver highly relevant, contextually aware, personalized content and recommendations to customers via both online and offline channels.
For more information
8. Video-enabled Business Processes
Video content continues to make its way into all business processes. This trend will continue over the next 5-10 years. It makes my list this year as it is crossing over from both a security tool and a marketing (e.g. YouTube) tool, into a tool that can be applied across business processes to improve the way businesses communicate, collaborate, and educate all stakeholders. Visual communication can actively promote teamwork and accelerate problem-solving processes leading to better business decisions. In 2011, I expect forward looking business leaders and business process reengineering consultants will begin to use video to transform key business processes in order to create competitive advantage, lower costs, and to reduce environmental impact, particularly by avoiding the need for travel. IT departments need to start preparing now to be able to handle future video requirements.
For more information
9. Service Oriented Architecture
In 2011 (as in recent years), I expect continued focus on aligning information technology efforts with business objectives and SOA will be a big part of those discussions. SOA has been around for years, so it is not a new concept at all. What’s new is that 1) business processes are in need of reengineering as a result of the social, mobile, and video trends discussed above and 2) a service orientation is a prerequisite for private clouds. This doesn't mean that a mature SOA must already exist before an enterprise can venture into the cloud, but rather that architecture strategies that involve cloud must have a service orientation. A service orientation gives businesses the ability and flexibility to realign operations as business goals evolve from year to year. This ability can mean a competitive edge in terms of time to market for products and services, responsiveness to customers, and customer satisfaction. So in 2011, I expect to see increased interest in SOA policy governance tools, repositories, and business rules engines all driven by the need of businesses to become more agile and prepare themselves for private clouds.
For more information
10. Sustainability and IT
Government and Business leaders alike are looking across their operations, to the products and solutions they sell, to the way they manage supplier relationships in order to understand how to better protect Mother Earth. The sustainability trend is a big one and technology can play a big part in helping to eliminate wasted energy, wasted space, and wasted natural resources/materials. New technologies are available that can help organizations become more energy efficient, implement new ways to source, manufacture and distribute goods and services in a more sustainable manner, and enable safe and renewable sources of energy. In 2011, I expect companies and governments to develop strategies to incorporate sustainability information technology solutions that include the capability to analyze data and synthesize information in a variety of forms required by different departments within an organization.
For more information
11. Risk Management
Organizations are facing an ever evolving and increasingly sophisticated threat environment. Adding to the complexity is the fact that organizations are installing new computing capabilities such as cloud computing, mobile computing, and social computing that are making applications interconnected than ever before. These new technologies are also introducing new risks that are compromising critical infrastructures, privacy and identity, requiring organizations to rethink how they deal with compliance, risk management and data protection. Business and IT leaders are realizing that they need to build security and risk management capability into the initial design of their infrastructure and their applications, rather than add them on as an afterthought. In 2011, I expect organizations will increase their focus on employ technology solutions to help them manage risk and provide a more secure environment for business operations.
For more information:
So there you go, that is my list of the top IT related technology trends that I believe will have an impact on IT departments in 2011. CIOs and their IT departments should be well aware of these trends and have plans to implement the enabling technologies that make up these trends. I’m developing a slide deck version of this post and will be posting it to the HorizonWatching account at SlideShare http://www.slideshare.net/HorizonWatching sometime in early January.
The 2011 Horizon Report was released earlier this year at the by EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and the New Media Consortium (NMC). 
