We live in a world of constantly emerging, developing and maturing technologies. These technologies are at the confluence of rapidly accelerating ideas and innovation.
The IT industry research firm Gartner has for many years tracked and analyzed emerging technologies from their inception to their fruition or demise and has developed, from their observations, the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies.
This cycle tracks the market views of various technologies, which go through predictable cycles from their “trigger” to their inflated peak of expectations, then down into the trough of disillusionment, then up the slope of enlightenment and, finally, to the plateau of productivity.
Keep in mind: Not everything travels the full cycle, some technologies disappear at any point along the cycle, usually after their peak; Some move along the cycle faster than others; Some technologies will stall out before reaching productivity and remain at that level.
The Gartner Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies
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Technology Trigger
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Peak of Inflated Expectations
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Trough of Disillusionment
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Slope of Enlightenment
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Plateau of Productivity
For 2008 Gartner has identified 27 emerging technologies and predicts that eight of these will have transformational business impact. According to Jackie Fenn, Gartner vice president and Gartner Fellow:
Web 2.0 is now entering the Trough of Disillusionment and will emerge within two years with transformational impact. Then later – in between two and five years – cloud computing and service-oriented architecture (SOA) will deliver transformation by driving deep changes in IT. Also, public virtual worlds, now in the trough of disillusionment after their peak of hype, will begin their ascent up the slope and represent an important media channel for broader communities of interest.
Ms Fenn is co-author of Gartner’s new book
Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Adopt the Right Innovation at the Right Time
published by Harvard Business Press. Ms Fenn and Mark Raskino, vice president and Gartner Fellow, explain a market-tested approach that offers a smarter way for companies to sort through the hype and choose the right innovations at the right time. Get your copy of this book.
Technologies and trends at or around the peak of the Hype Cycle in 2008 that will reach the plateau in two to five years are:
- Green IT
- Cloud Computing
- Social Computing Platforms
- Video Telepresence
- Microblogging
More on these after the jump:
Green IT — Along with broader societal pressure for environmentally sustainable solutions, IT has the opportunity — and in many cases, a requirement — to improve the "greenness" of its own activities, as well as to contribute to broader company and industry environmental initiatives.
Cloud computing — As companies seek to consume their IT services in the most cost-effective way, interest is growing in drawing a broad range of services (for example, computational power, storage and business applications) from the "cloud," rather than from on-premises equipment. Many types of technology providers are aligning themselves with this trend, with the result that confusion and hype will continue for at least another year before distinct submarkets and market leaders emerge.
Social computing platforms — Following the phenomenal success of consumer-oriented social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, companies are examining the role that these sites, or their enterprise-grade equivalents, will play in future collaboration environments. The scope is also expanding to incorporate the notion of social "platforms," or environments for a broad range of developers to build on the basic application.
Video telepresence — High-end videoconferencing systems (for example, from HP, Cisco, Teliris and others) that utilize large, high-definition (HD) displays and components to show life-size images of participants in meeting rooms or suites have proven significantly more effective than earlier generations of videoconferencing technology in providing a strong sense of in-room presence between remote participants. High cost is currently the barrier to broader adoption.
Microblogging— Pioneered by Twitter (although other services such as FriendFeed or Plurk are also available), microblogging is a relatively new addition to the world of social networking, in which contributors post a stream of very short messages (fewer than 140 characters) providing information about their current activity or thoughts, which can then be subscribed to by others. The phenomenon has caught on among certain online communities, and leading-edge companies are investigating its role in enhancing other social media and channels.
Source: Gartner (July 2008)
"Following the trend of the last few years, many of the new entries on this year’s Hype Cycle, including microblogging, social networking platforms and cloud computing, are making their impact in the consumer world before they hit businesses," Ms Fenn said. "Other technologies that have passed the trigger where they start to be interesting to businesses include 3-D printing, surface computing, augmented reality and mobile robots. We expect early adopters to start applying these in novel ways and driving new classes of application, such as using 3-D printers to dramatically change the supply chain by creating products and replacement parts at the point of need."
Ms Fenn has been authoring the Hype Cycle for emerging trends for 13 years. She said the emerging technologies Hype Cycle focuses on strategic technology and innovative function within IT. It is the broadest aggregate of Gartner’s Hype Cycles, highlighting emerging technologies from all areas of IT that technology planners should evaluate as part of their emerging-technology plans.
Ms Fenn is co-author of Gartner’s new book Mastering the Hype Cycle : How to Adopt the Right Innovation at the Right Time published by Harvard Business Press. Ms Fenn and Mark Raskino, vice president and Gartner Fellow, explain a market-tested approach that offers a smarter way for companies to sort through the hype and choose the right innovations at the right time. Get your copy of this book
See Also: From Strategy to Execution: Turning Accelerated Global Change into Opportunity
Tags: Cloud Computing, Emerging Technologies, Gartner, Gartner Research, Green IT, Hype Cycle, Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies, Jackie Fenn, Mark Raskino, Microblogging, Predictable Cycles, social computing, Video Telepresence
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