Predicting the future is a high risk enterprise. When you are right, future pundits will observe that your predictions were obvious. When you are wrong, these same commentators will describe your thinking as faulty and naïve. None-the-less, fascination with the future is wide spread and few of us are not interested in well thought out projections. Today’s Display Daily will abstract a top 10 list of technological predictions developed by Gartner Inc. (Stamford, Ct; www.gartner.com).

Art Berman
Insight Media Consultant

1. The challenge presented by current world economic conditions is set to drive the uptake of video telepresence during the next three years. One consequence of this is that the travel industry will lose out to high-definition based video meeting solutions, which will replace 2.1 million airline seats annually. This is projected to cost the travel and hospitality industry $3.5 billion per year.
2. Virtualisation is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources. From 2009 to 2013 the server virtualisation software market will grow with a CAGR of 28%, rising from $1.8B to $6.2B. Virtualisation’s impact on the IT industry will continue to be the catalyst for change in infrastructure and operations until 2013. Organizations will look to virtualisation to cut costs, better utilize assets and reduce implementation/management time and complexity.
3. By 2011, 30% of consulting and systems integration revenue will be delivered via cloud computing, a style of computing where massively scaleable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to external customers using Internet technologies.
4. Twenty-five percent of the top 20 providers of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) will not exist as separate entities by 2012.
5. Although vendors are making some progress developing recycling schemes, by 2012, the major PC vendors will recycle only one PC for every five they ship. PC recycling is still highly dependent on government legislation and subsidies. Without subsidies, PC recycling is usually not profitable.

6. By 2012, 30% of mobile PCs sold in the worldwide consumer market will be priced at less than $300. Low-cost PCs allow vendors to increase PC penetration in emerging markets. The inclusion of wireless functionality for mobile Internet connectivity, when combined with growing availability of wireless infrastructure makes these devices attractive to telecommunications service providers, opening up a new distribution channel. Individually purchased devices of this type will be attached in growing numbers to the network by remote and mobile workers.
7. By yearend 2013, 40% of enterprise knowledge workers will have abandoned or removed their desk phone. With complex desk phones costing several hundred dollars per unit, and growing moves towards remote workers, hotdesking and other business practices that unlink an individual from a fixed location, significant cost savings are possible.
8. By the end of next year 2010, most wireless operators will cease to offer unlimited (flat-rate) mobile data plans. Users must expect data throughput limitations on 3G to continue.
9. By yearend 2012, physical sensors will create 20% of non-video Internet traffic. The extent and diversity of real-time environmental sensing is growing rapidly as the ability to act on and interpret the growing volumes of data to capture valuable information increases.

The 10th prediction is, perhaps, one of the most speculative.

10. By 2012, successful enterprises will actively encourage and reward more failures in order to find the optimal approach they want more quickly. Business users will be given and encouraged to use a business process "sandbox" - a safe place in which to build their skills and test their ideas.

The value of speculations of this type regarding future technology trends is that it allows organizations an opportunity to consider how to create new business models and to enable better informed business decision making. I can’t wait to see what happens next!