| The top ten enterprise IT trends for 2011
Security, cloud services and sustainability will be three of the most important trends in enterprise IT in 2011, according to Ovum.
The independent technology analyst has named its top ten trends for the coming year, which also include mobility, data management and data centre transformation. Business analytics, collaboration, IT financial management and context-aware computing also make the list .
Security
Security continues to be high on the IT agenda as the number of threats to businesses increases rapidly.
Data management
Data management will be a key area due to the sheer volumes now passing through enterprises.
Business analytics
The technologies' ability to improve decision-making, identify new business opportunities, maximize cost savings and detect inefficiencies is driving its importance for organizations.
Mobility
In IT management, the mobility challenge in 2011 will be to embrace the new technology while developing a strategy that maintains a balance between user preference and productivity and corporate security and compliance.
Data center transformation
The role of the data center is witnessing a dramatic shift as the cloud computing era heralds a new dawn in the delivery of IT services in 2011.
Cloud services
Cloud computing will continue to grow steadily in 2011. Ovum believes that it is no longer a question of whether or not enterprises will use cloud computing, they already are. However, it is still early days for both providers and CIOs, who will grapple to take
advantage in 2011.
Collaboration
To cater for changes in work practices, an integrated approach to collaboration is needed which includes social networking and video conferencing.
Sustainability
New opportunities will continue to emerge in 2011 which allow organizations to work in a more environmentally-friendly way.
IT financial management
The CIO should talk the language of business and put in place better IT financial management in 2011.
Context-aware computing
In 2011, CIOs should be looking to instrumentation, metering and wireless technologies to play a significant role in providing the context which can lead to automated business processes and increased productivity.
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Study Reveals 75% of Companies Will Use Enterprise-Class Cloud Computing Solutions Within Five Years
Three-fourths of companies either currently employ enterprise-grade cloud computing solutions or plan to implement enterprise-grade cloud over the next five years, according to a new study commissioned by Savvis, Inc., a provider of cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises.
The study found that IT usually identifies projects and areas that could benefit from cloud and informs the business. However, 23 percent of respondents reported that business leaders sometimes bypass IT and purchase solutions on their own.
Other key findings from the survey include:
- 60 percent consider it extremely or very challenging to find the right cloud computing solution for their companies
- 69 percent perceive cloud computing solutions as offering greater flexibility
- 64 percent expect spending on hosted, on-demand and/or cloud-based software at their companies to increase over the next year
- 62 percent rate security as a critical factor when evaluating cloud solutions
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IDC Predicts Cloud Services, Mobile Computing, and Social Networking to Mature and Coalesce in 2011, Creating a New Mainstream for the IT Industry
In 2011, and certainly beyond, IDC expects cloud services, mobile computing, and social networking to mature and coalesce into a new mainstream platform for both the IT industry and the industries it serves.
The platform transition will be fueled by another solid year of recovery in IT spending. IDC forecasts worldwide IT spending will be $1.6 trillion in 2011, an increase of 5.7% over 2010. While hardware spending will remain strong (7.8% year-over-year growth), the industry will depend to a larger extent on improvements in software spending (5.3% growth) and related project-based services spending (3.5% growth), as well as gains in outsourcing (4% growth). Worldwide IT spending will also benefit from the accelerated recovery in emerging markets, which will generate more than half of all net new IT spending worldwide in 2011.
Spending on public IT cloud services will grow at more than five times the rate of the IT industry in 2011, up 30% from 2010, as organizations move a wider range of business applications into the cloud. Small and medium-sized business cloud use will surge in 2011, with adoption of some cloud resources topping 33% among U.S. midsize firms by year's end. Meanwhile, the more nascent private cloud model will continue to evolve as infrastructure, software, and service providers collaborate on a range of new offerings and solutions. Meanwhile, the vendor battle for two cloud "power positions" will be joined to determine on whose cloud platform will solutions be deployed, and who will provide coherent IT management across multiple public clouds, customers' private clouds, and their legacy IT environments.
Mobile computing -- on a variety of devices and through a range of new applications -- will continue to explode in 2011, forming another critical plank in the new industry platform. IDC expects shipments of app-capable, non-PC mobile devices (smartphones, media tablets, etc.) will outnumber PC shipments within the next 18 months -- and there will be no looking back. While vendors with a PC heritage will scramble to secure their position in this rapidly expanding market, another battle will be taking place for dominance in the mobile apps market. The level of activity in this market will be staggering, with IDC expecting nearly 25 billion mobile apps to be downloaded in 2011, up from just over 10 billion in 2010. Over time, the still-emerging apps ecosystems promise to fundamentally restructure the channels for all digital content and services to consumers.
Meanwhile, social business software has gained significant momentum in the enterprise over the past 18 months and this trend is expected to continue with IDC forecasting a compound annual growth rate of 38% through 2014. In a sure sign that social business has hit the mainstream, IDC expects 2011 to be a year of consolidation as the major software vendors acquire social software providers to jump-start or increase their social business footprint. Meanwhile, the use of social platforms by small and medium-sized businesses will accelerate, with more than 40% of SMBs using social networks for promotional purposes by the year's end.
As the new mainstream IT platform coalesces in the months ahead, IDC expects it to lay a foundation for IT vendors to support, and profit from, a variety of "intelligent industry" transformations. In retail, mobility and social networking are rapidly changing consumers' shopping experience as they bring their smartphones into the store for on-site price comparisons and product recommendations. In financial services, mobility and the cloud are bringing mobile banking and payments closer to reality. In the healthcare industry, IDC expects 14% of adult Americans to use a mobile health application in 2011.
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