Five New Technologies That Will Change Enterprise Computing
This fall will see the adoption and increased widespread use of new technologies that will alter the way enterprise computing is accomplished. Some of these technologies come from the consumer technology side of the business, some are grown from labs, and some are the result of integrating existing technologies. Check out our top five picks for technologies that will change the game in enterprise computing.
1. Search, the next generation. Google grew into a huge company by capitalizing on melding search with context-specific advertising. The next generation of search will take the contextual idea about 10 steps forward. By combining search, social networking and location awareness, users will be able to add emotional context to search, and advertisers will be able to derive revenues from customer presence rather than customer awareness. The next generation of search is a huge opportunity in which neither Google nor Microsoft nor Yahoo is now in a position of dominance.
2. A virtual company means more than a garbled conference call. The mobile enterprise? Maybe, but right now the software to build virtual companies is sorely lacking in capabilities and integration. Replicating meetings both formal and informal, real-time sales results, and all of the myriad elements that go into running a real, face-to-face company should be the outcome of the business services available. Right now you can assemble disparate pieces of a business, but the virtualized, mobile enterprise is not yet there. But don't think that lots of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists aren't interested and investing in this area.
3. Virtualizing all the other stuff. Virtualization has a lot more legs than just cutting down the number of servers in the data center. Servers, storage, networking and client computing from desktops through notebooks and smartphones are all in line for the virtualization makeover. Virtualization management is catching up, but the big management console that lets you know the availability, security and capacity of an entire company full of virtualized devices is still under development. This fall will see those management consoles being introduced by a range of vendors.
4. Cloud creator. Cloud computing is absolutely the buzzword king of the technology marketplace. But CIOs are still reluctant to turn their company's technology operations over to their Internet connection. Taking the existing business applications and adding cloud services that are always secure and always available is the business opportunity of the moment. Expect to see lots of promises and some actual delivery of these cloud services over the next couple quarters.
5. The X factor. The best thing about technology is that it is always in flux. The technologies that were going to be game-changing (client/server comes to mind immediately) often sputter and die. The technologies that are first discounted (search on the Internet, voice over IP, your college yearbook turning into Facebook) often become the dominant players. Trying to guess the next big thing is what keeps pundits in business. I tend to think that management technologies, including energy management, education management—providing distance learning and measuring achievement—and financial management for both the public and private sectors will be a big deal. But we'll have to see how that develops.
Source: SMARTER STRATEGIES
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