As IT requirements change rapidly due to an increasingly complex threat landscape and new usage models, including clouds and numerous CE devices connecting to the internet, security will remain one of the highest priorities for the IT industry. Over the next year, the industry will focus on foundational capabilities for infrastructure protection and maintaining both personal and business secrets.
Consumers buying trusted brands in uncertainty
Economic uncertainty will continue to be the driving force for a more considered form of consumer consumption and decision-making. The majority of consumers will think twice about what they buy. In spite of this continued state of uncertainty, consumers will likely return to familiar brands because they embody a trusted investment and demonstrate tested quality.
The “consumerization” of IT
2011 will mark the point where we see a blurring of consumer devices and enterprise devices. We saw it in 2010 with iPhones and Android phones brought inside the corporate firewall. Employees will want to use their personal solutions for work productivity and employers will want to augment the corporate environment with the devices to drive productivity. Virtualization, anti-theft technology, remote management and security will be needed to support these devices as they move from home to work.
Smart signage
Interactive, “Minority Report” style digital signs will become widely accepted, featuring new modes of interaction, including face and gesture recognition.
Consumers will go from talking about managing their energy consumption to actually doing it with a variety of home energy management devices and services becoming available.
Auto tech
With sophisticated technologies acting as central nervous systems in today's cars, new in-vehicle technologies are getting and will continue to attract tremendous interest, whether it’s new entertainment features, hands-free voice control of smart phones, other safety technologies or driver functions performed automatically by the vehicle.
Sunny forecast for cloud, virtualized computing
The enterprise cloud will take off as more cloud-based services are recast for business use, including social networking. With most large corporations plowing through the virtualization of their environment in 2010, next year will also see build-out of internal cloud solutions. In addition, cloud-based rendering will be done in the cloud and streamed over broadband networks to devices with modest graphics horsepower.