Top 10 strategic technology trends for 2015

If you’re a techie, chances are high you’ve seen the term ‘The Internet of Things’ pop up numerous

times in your online news reader over the last few months.

What is ‘The Internet of Things’?

Gartner defines the Internet of Things (IoT) as the network of physical objects that contain embedded

technology to communicate sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment. The

Internet of Things has reached the height of its hype, according to Gartner. Each year the research firm

comes up with a Hype Cycle of emerging technologies, a sort of report card for various trends and

buzzwords. This year, IoT tops the list (See chart below).

Gartner trend predictions

Once a year or so, Gartner will release a list of technologies the research firm believes will have the

greatest market impact in the near future. The top 10 technology trend list, presented by Gartner

analyst David Cearley at the firm's annual Symposium/ITxpo, is focused on merging the real world with

the virtual one, what that means for analytics and the type of IT that has to emerge to deal with it.

Here's Gartner's top 10 trends list for 2015:

1: Computing Everywhere. To Gartner, this simply means ubiquitous access to computing capabilities.

Intelligent screens and connected devices will proliferate, and will take many forms, sizes and

interaction styles.

Cearley warned that IT departments are not well suited for the design challenges involved in ubiquitous

availability, and said companies may need to acquire the expertise.

2: The Internet of Things (IoT). Clearley's advice to IT managers is to experiment, get ideas going and

empower individuals in IT organizations to develop uses for connected devices and sensors.

Cearley believes IoT has enormous potential to deliver value to businesses, and said even small sensors

that can detect problems in equipment before failure occurs, can save a business thousands of dollars.

3: 3D printing. The technology has been around since 1984, but is now maturing and shipments are on

the rise. While consumer 3D printing gets a lot of attention, it's really the enterprise use that can deliver

value.

4: Advanced, Pervasive and Invisible Analytics. Every application is an analytical app today.

5: Context Rich Systems. Knowing the user, the location, what they have done in the past, their

preferences, social connections and other attributes all become inputs into applications.

6: Smart Machines. As an example, Cearley pointed to global mining company Rio Tinto which operates

autonomous trucks, to show the role smart machines will play.

7: Cloud and Client Computing. This highlights the central role of the cloud. An application will reside in

a cloud, and it will be able to span multiple clients.

8: Software Defined Applications and Infrastructure. IT can't work on hard coded, pre-defined elements;

it needs to be able to dynamically assemble infrastructure, said Cearley.

9: Web-Scale IT. This is akin to adopting some of the models used by large cloud providers, including

their risk-embracing culture and collaborative alignments.

10: Security. In particular, Gartner envisions more attention to application self-protection.

Do you agree with Gartner's predictions? Add a comment to this post and tell us what you think.