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Ten tech predictions to shake your world

The statement "This prediction suggests that tech workers should look to other job segments for employment" is total lunacy. CEO's and CFO's are like Air Force Generals, they think they can use the most highspeed expensive fighter aircraft with the most sophisticated weapons to acheive the mission, but in the end, it is the infantryman that must take the hill.

This whole set of predictions is bogus. John C. Dvorak said it better than I ever could. See his commentary at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,633382,00.asp

Oh boy, I have heard and read quite a few good ******** stories in my professional career but this is one takes to Ed Wood palm!
Who the hell authorized the release of this piece at Gardner? Is that what they best thinking comes up with?
As teh rest of my peers on this board I agree that looking down the road more than 3 to 5 years is pure lunacy.
100 Gb LAN's been out for 2 years and I have yet to find a regular business which uses it on the floor.
Laying off millions? hum, why not the entire work force...
oh well I rambling and not being constructive. Hard to be though with such material.
Pathetic

Well done.

Good info.

Alright, I'm going to have to go with Dvorak on this one. These 10 predictions are not only way out there, but trying to predict what's happing in the computer world 10 years from now is not only impossible, but rediculous.

Bah. Gardner has no clue. Read this.

These have to be some of the worst predictions I have ever seen.

Want some solid predictions? (cut me some slack. I wrote this up in 15 minutes. Gardner had high priced think tanks working for them)1) Control over computers, from hardware to software, will be slowly leaked away from an unsuspecting public and businesses as consolidated hardware and software giants (MS, Intel, etc) begin to truly create a choke-hold over their markets.

2) Beprepared to still pay a huge amount of money for proprietary software. This prediction of mine stands for only the US (it protects its monopolies in law and in belief). At this point, I don?t see our software monopolies beginning to fail. They are to well supported by a campaign financing happy government. However, its is looking as though the EU and Latin America are starting taking open source seriously because the American assisted monopolies? power over their lives are scaring them.

3) Start seeing some serious resistance to ?ASPs?. I kept hearing how asps are going to take over the world. I am sure asps really really really wanted that to happen. NO BUISINESS wants that sort of choke hold over the software they need to survive. No company wants to ?rent? software that they can buy somewhere else, and if need be, hold on to it for 7 years. Good luck ASPs, I know you won?t be getting my business. Microsoft wants to take care of all your company email? My company rather go to lotus notes than let Microsoft host our email systems.

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4) Prepare for a marketing BLITZ. Prepare to completely loose all vestiges of privacy. Once your identity is WOVEN into your workstations (that sort of thing is already in the works) (ie remember Pentium II serial numbers?), a marketing profile will be created of you. Hey, you know how you now have a FINANCIAL profile? Well guess what, there are MARKETING profiles being created, and in the future, those profiles will be as important as your credit ratings (Will I hire you? Let me see if your marketing profile lists you as a "sexual diviant") (ie, you?ve been hitting to many she-male porn sites stupid).

These profiles will be create from television profiles (yes, your Digital cable DOES record your viewing habits stupid, and if it doesn't completely now, it most certainly will!!), from your web viewing habits (web viewing is pretty much a blue print on how your brain is wired. Trust me). Etc etc etc. (wow, just imagine how much china would love this sort of thing!!!! They?llbe able to flag possible ?problems? by databasing and running predictive softare on your marketing profile. Opps! You borrowed to many ?democratic? books from the library!)

5) Privacy software will come into its own. Freedom died because it came out to early. I see a serious re-immurgence of software that protects you from prying eyes. However that will start a privacy arms race. Web sites will NOT let you in if you are not using a ?Trusted? web browser or somehow you are using a proxy to hide your identity. Sorry bloke, we need to know who you are.

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6) We?ll be seeing a LOT more censoring of the internet by governments to protect their interests (China blocking www.google.com) or protecting their industries (panama blocking ALL telephony ports in and out of their country because their long distance carriers are suffering because of dialpad.com).

7) Bandwidth will continue to stay fairly expensive. Why? Deregulation and greed. And the fact that telecommunications companies want people to be confused over how they conduct business. I know this from pure experience. (enron is an excellent example of dereg. and greed in the power industry) I dont see a serious drop in bandwidth for a while. Gradual? Mostly. There is just to much bandwidth concentrated to to few hands. Those hands are NOT interested in dropping their prices. My cable company raised their rates by 5 dollars a few months ago. I couldnt do my buisiness with another cable company because well.... there WASNT any other cable company.

That?s all I can think of right now. I am sure others can expand on this.

Gardner needs to hire a new think tank.

-Public@lipan.org

Public@lipan.org you have some serious problems - you need to seek help because you are one paranoid person.

Have you ever heard of the data protection act? The US, UK and all the members of the EU have their own version and all of them are agreed in law. All of the individual data protection acts are agreed in international law in relation to one another. What is the point? With half of the BS you wrote about The Data Protection Acts guard against. In most companies in the private sector obtaining and storing almost ANY of the data you mentioned would be illegal and more importantly easy to prove. That's not to mention where would they keep all the massive amounts of data, how would the access it and would it actually be cost effective?

You ask people to trust you and claim to have personal experience. Why should someone trust you and how could you possibly have experience that would help you with all the different areas you reference?

1) If my statements is BS, please do not call them BS, backup your arguments with intelligent facts, research, and links.
And dont call people paranoid. It doesnt help the debate.

2) I've heard of the act, but you need to provide more details/links etc. I dont know much about it.

Please look up any information on DRM (digital rights management) and Palladium (encrypted keys located in the software and the hardware) and "trusted computing". Be sure to also check CPRM (Content Protection for Recordable Media) (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/23516.html)

Also look further into MS Passport (tying your identity to your computer).

And yes, I have plenty of experience. I am not paranoid. All my predictions are basedon fact, logic and precedence. Like it or not, it will happen

I am not aware of a digital protection act but it looks like the EU will be recording all Billing, emails, web surfing, phone calls, telephone locations of their residents for a required 2 years. Please view this article about "Data Retention Laws in the EU"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28228.html

Here is a good reason why it WONT work.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020718.html

Please be sure to do a lot of research please. Also note in my first paragraph, my predictions were 15 minutes worth of work.

Comments are always welcome.

Here, in America, we believe that the 4th amendment will protect us from unlawful search. However this amendment only protects us from the government. A private company can gather all the information you're willing to give them. Fly on an airline? They know what credit card you paid for the service with, where you live, who you work for, your phone number, and probably a lot more. ("…And Mr. Smith, could we have a phone number, in case we have to reach you, about your flight?")And Microsoft's desire to have your system "phone home" isn't the only instance of someone trying to get a look inside your computer. Spyware is in its infancy. Doubleclick, gator, and all the rest are gathering information on us right now, to "help" us through better marketing. Now they only look at web sights. But what's next? We had one instance of a piece of spyware setting up a web server on a desktop machine. Who was harvesting information from that web and what were they harvesting? No idea. But it's happening, and most of it is legal.

Have you read what private companies can do now? All they have to do is submit a form stating that they _think_ you are involved in illegal copyright activity and they can go after you - ostensibly for proof.

The problem is that there is no proof necessary to corroborate the assertion. And ANYONE can do it. You don't have to be a law enforcement agency or the RMIA. A porn site can do it to gain email addresses to bombard with crap. People can do it to collect private information in order to defraud them. The list goes on and on.

If this is privacy via the government, I want no more of it!

Do not be fooled claymuir. Our constitution was set up to protect our privacy, to protect our freedom. Much has been done to errode the protection of those "rights" we held so dear when the United States was born. Privacy is so much a thing of the past that it is scary. I am not asking you to take my word, check out the following web site:
http://www.privacyfoundation.org/

There are many many web sites and books on the subject of privacy. You owe it to yourself to take a look at them.We are not all conspiracy theorists. Big Brother is out there, and he knows what you are doing and when.

Do not be fooled claymuir. Our constitution was set up to protect our privacy, to protect our freedom. Much has been done to errode the protection of those "rights" we held so dear when the United States was born. Privacy is so much a thing of the past that it is scary. I am not asking you to take my word, check out the following web site:
http://www.privacyfoundation.org/

There are many many web sites and books on the subject of privacy. You owe it to yourself to take a look at them.We are not all conspiracy theorists. Big Brother is out there, and he knows what you are doing and when.

Do not be fooled claymuir. Our constitution was set up to protect our privacy, to protect our freedom. Much has been done to errode the protection of those "rights" we held so dear when the United States was born. Privacy is so much a thing of the past that it is scary. I am not asking you to take my word, check out the following web site:
http://www.privacyfoundation.org/

There are many many web sites and books on the subject of privacy. You owe it to yourself to take a look at them.We are not all conspiracy theorists. Big Brother is out there, and he knows what you are doing and when.

well said, let's put a big mainframe in HQ and fire all the onsite tech's. um, sorry, that doesn't work to well. it has it's place, but I agree with your military comparison. there always has been and always will be, a big Pyramid of work forces.

And making a profit from that sale. Computers, networks, and everthing that goes with it is only a tool for that end. As in any business, computer hardware mfg's, software makers [and everything in between] sell their goods to make a profit. Convincing customers that they NEED new hardware or software is the job of marketing and sales. Convincing is the key word here and marketing, advertising and sales people are very good at convincing that you NEED their product, when in fact, you may not. Isee and forsee an era of consumer disgruntlement [both business and personal] in having to shell out large amounts of money every 6 months because what they bought for top dollar is now obsolete. In a specialty niche, [such as research departments] getting the latest and greatest helped in overcoming obstacles to their research. But consumers do not nor do they have the financial resources to "keep up with the Jones'es". With computers in more than 60% of households, this market is now predicated upon consumers fickle nature where cost, not capabilities drives sales. [how many people do you know who are just your average guy/or girl that still run Pentium III's at 400 mhz? or still use Office 2000? The "computer" industry, just like any business industry has it's lifecycle. Growth, maturity, decline. The computer industry is emerging as a mature industry [as we have seen with consolidations,failures of business entities within this industry]. It will become tougher for companies to produce a product, convince the public that there is a NEED for that products as consumers become more tech savy by the fact that they have more information available to them as competition forces companies to give those consumers that information [in the effort to prove their product is better than a competing product]. I see a Moore's law as the computer industries "Achillies heel" as consumers take over the major portion of a

You are wrong.

Infantryman may not be in U.S. or U.S. citizen. CFO and CEO will not need them in U.S.

CFO and CEO will go where they find cheaper infantryman.

BeeJay

Some of the crystal ball is interesting - 150 gig processors - by then I think we will be using quantum computers - seeing that they still haven't broken the cooling of a chips running at 4 to 8 gig. Hum what are we going to have - little liquid Ni units attached to our PC's..

These CEO's that believe they can continue to do more with less - all because you are using the fastest machine - the quickest software - the most powerful network.. It just doesn't work that way... When are these All Seeing MBA's going to realize that it takes people power to install, maintain, train and program these powerfull little tools...

We aren't to the HAL-6000 yet...

And predictions of greater than 3 years is like masterbating - fun - but doesn't do anything for you - Gartner needs to look 3 to max 5 years out. Anything beyond that is put speculation - and hype - There are just to may factors to do any type of perdiction 5 to 10 years out. Economy? War? International events?

Gartner drop back 7 and give us a 3 year outlook...

Isn't this the same Gartner Group that predicted the IT world would stop on January 1, 2000?

I doubt they are any more accurate with this batch of predictions.

The title is way off, the predictions are not stable and doesnt include the world of human behavior.

New technology takes a long time to break into people, take the mobile phone it has been around since the 80's and the internet is self - both technology are promoted by mouth-to-mouth conversation. It will go slow to incorporate IT into the normal buissnies.

The companies that are most eager to put IT to use are the Mining companies. They can mine faster take more risks since all workersare operation there machines on remote.

To think that banks would play major role is also false since both in Japan and here in Sweden traditionaly sales companies have got banking license (savings account and own creditcards).

IT will boots productivity but not by more then 3-5 percent a year. The it branch is self only increases its overall productivity by 2-3 percent a year. It takes time for workers to utilize the befits and adapt work procedures.

So shake my world? No, but changeit yes, a slow graduate change that doesnt stop not even in a depression. Japan rose from there depression by changing work procedures and buisniss standards.

Regardless of how cheap bandwidth becomes, people will still always want their hard drives. In the enterprise, maybe. But the home pc users will never want to turn over control of their personal data (ie. mp3s, resumes, games, etc.) to a 3rd party. In fact, I'm tempted to predict a shift in the opposite direction (ie. moving residential thin clients into obsolescence).

Companies looking to have competitive advantage will be moving towards flexible enterprise systems. This means a strong enterprise architecture group leading the way, logically centralized systems, physically decentralized systems, much more open commercial software systems.

I would guess that the looked at the fads today (regardless of their long term economic sense) and extended them to 2010. Many of today's systems fads are bad for the long term bottom line, particularly in that they are poorly implemented, oversold and hardly ever coming close to what is promised, and have lots of hidden costs that surprise the decision makers.

4. Successful firms in strong economy lay off millions

I don't know how they define successful but companies that are growing and making more money generally do not lay off people... they hire people. The short term gains to profits from laying off workers is only successful in that the stock price will go up and the CEO's will get big bonuses. Long term if the company is to grow they will end up hiring more workers to replace the layed off workers and generally spend more money to do so.

A new concept that will replace and perhaps become the standards of that is slowly speading. It may take some time, but the 10 year preiction is too early to estimate.

The theory is ok in an academic setting. But we work and live in the real world. Where rarely do so many variables actually acure in just the right order.

I still believe that Delphi has great potential. With the release of Kylix, most of my Delphi codes can be recompiled in Linux with a single click, and voila! a Linux version of my software. Granted, Linux is not that popular as a desktop OS yet, but it is gaining popularity.

Another feature that I like about Delphi is that it is able to link to .obj files compiled in C++ and is also able to generate .obj files to be linked with C++ codes.

I also agree that we should not limit ourselves to a single language. Knowing and understanding the concepts are much more important! If you have really good understanding of a certain concept, you can switch to a new language/platform by just buying a book on the new language and learning its syntax/functions. (Of course, there is still the learning curve and also the problem that your code might not be so optimised).

Althoug there may be some merit to what these groups predict, it is impossible to make presumptions about the business itself. All of thoes that make these predictions seem to forget that IT is the driving force behind our entire economy. Why would they hurt that by lowering the need for professionals ?

Lets see; by 2011 we will have 6 TB of hard drive on the average desktop and WIN2010 will only take 5.4TB?

nobody can predict the future!!! These guesstimations are just that best guesses. It's like going to a fortune teller and getting them to read your palm. They really don't know do they? If you look at business and the consumer, they must coexist. The consumer ultimately has the power and business as good as they try cannot take total control. Therefore, any new schemes, plans or ideas are going to take innovative technical and creative individuals to continue create things that people need. Technology is the driving force of mankind. We will continue to learn to do it faster and better than we did it yesterday.

Even though Gartner can hedge their bets by saying that opposing things will happen, the net result is the same. Companies will continue to layoff and hire at the same time and the application companies will send as many development jobs as possibleto India to cut costs. All-the-while it will be tough getting sufficient support to keep up on the latest technologies.

We are left with our own tasks,
1. Re-dedicate ourselves to improving our knowledge and abilities.
2. Diversify our income in a way that doesn't take large amounts of time away from family, work and self improvement.
3. Hang on and pray a lot the ride isn't getting any smoother.

The best way to predict the future is to build it said Allan Kay. Whenever I see predictions like these ones I tend to remember this phrase. I also tend to remember some famous predictions from IBM or DEC chairman. On the serious side though if thats possible with such non-sense the predictions one and ten and the apparent contradiction between them is interesting. Of course nothing new there as well. This swing has been continously happening in the short history of computing. So in summary these guys from Gartner are they real or is this a sort of AI experiment ?

Would be nice to have cushy job daydreaming up nonsense. Suspect successful corporations will covet their data closer and more securely as time passes.

It is always amusing to me to hear such "predictions." With 20 years in IT, I have heard these so many times.
Remember Y2K?
GG should stick to unbiased industry evaluations rather than biased revalations.
I for one have never given much credence to any "prediction" of where we will be beyond one year because there are just too many variables in the chaos of reality. They totally neglect the impact of nanotechnologies, materials research, molecular biology and totally new heretofor unknown technologies on both societies and the economies of the world.
I do concur with some of the statements, provided we accept that global events can change any direction of any enterprise in the blink of an eye. I think their position on global electronic commerce is reasonable to assume. I agree that bandwidth will be more cost effective and affordable.
I am willing to donate some cleaning pads for their obviously clouded crystal ball.

Eight years is too far out and some of their predictions are simply too far out -- as in just plain out there. Most businesses only go out 5 years tops, for practical considerations.
Gartner's list has too many IF's in it to be taken seriously.After 36 years in the IT field (both private and public sectors), I think I've got a pretty good grasp of reality. The fact is that users want control of their own data, and I think most will reject the thin client move suggested in Gartners first prediction. What happens if that network crashes and precious data cannot be reached? Remember all the talk about getting people out of cars and onto mass transit? Same deal here. We're still driving our cars, aren't we. Predictions 2 and 3... no way, too many if's involved. Layoff of millions in prediction #4? Get real. Profitable companies do not lay off workers. It's the good workers that make the company profitable, so to say they'll be layed off is preposterous. I think there willbe many more jobs sent over to India, but the layoff of millions ain't gonna happen.
As for business units making more application decisions, I don't think they will become the sole determiners of applications selected for use because they simply don't have the knowledge or analytical skills (relative to software) to make good choices. I think what we'll see is that the business units will become more involved in specifying what they want in applications, and that is as it should be. After all, they're the ones who will use them. It will be up to us in IT to put forth our best efforts in "customer relations" as we work with the business units to determine which software will best fit their needs, then either build or purchase the best solution. If you can't do that, then you qualify to become one of Gartner's millions in #4.
Okay, Gartner... care to take another stab it it?

Interesting predictions: Guess they picked up some ex-Andersen employees. But in reality some of what they predict will probably take place. For one big firms will probably lay more people off. Why? Because they operate poorly and need to improve their bottom line. But with all these people on the sidelines will come more entrepeneur opportunities so unemployment will not go up drastically. Also, the pendulum will swing back the other way and some of these large companies will start breaking upand going back to their core competencies. They will have to allowing them to stay alive against the entrepeneurs. While it has been a tough go for the last 30 months, it will get brighter. For those of you who are IT folks, keep your skills currentand learn some business skills.

Gary

Some of this I'm not qualified to speak on, but here are a few observations.

Staffing levels: The real impact here is likely to be an increase in the effect where existing enterprises face competition from new players with highly-automated procedures, and less staff, and are then forced out of business or taken over. The new enterprise may hire a few more staff, but the net effect in the economy will be less jobs. It seems to me the areas which are still ripe for this are financial services and retail.

Future for IT workers: The trend will continue for enterprises to use packaged solutions, especially for tasks that are not integral to the main business line. Even there, we may see more packaged solutions if there is sufficient market.

Regarding previous criticisms of Gartner in this matter: the best one can do is predict on the basis of past experience and market trends and currently viable technology. 40 years ago, people were predicting that by now we'd all be living on Mars ...

Option 1 says that we can expect network-centric computing with thin clients.
Option 6 These thin clients will have 4 to 8 processors and terabytes of storage.
Some thin client.
My prediction is more users suffering stress caused by the buggy software that's being rushed out.

Option 1 says that we can expect network-centric computing with thin clients.
Option 6 These thin clients will have 4 to 8 processors and terabytes of storage.
Some thin client.
My prediction is more users suffering stress caused by the buggy software that's being rushed out.

Option 1 says that we can expect network-centric computing with thin clients.
Option 6 These thin clients will have 4 to 8 processors and terabytes of storage.
Some thin client.
My prediction is more users suffering stress caused by the buggy software that's being rushed out.

Option 1 says that we can expect network-centric computing with thin clients.
Option 6 These thin clients will have 4 to 8 processors and terabytes of storage.
Some thin client.
My prediction is more users suffering stress caused by the buggy software that's being rushed out.

What systems has Gartner implemented? How have they become experts? Has anyone checked to see how their prediction fare? I give it .0009 chance they are close to any predictions.

The title/summary leads one to believe that the author is going to provide a commentary on the predictions, then fails to separate the comments from the rehash of the article.

I am disappointed that neither the author nor the editor caught this and enforced it. The article could have been interesting. Instead, it turned into a morass of confusion and a summary of a summary. This was a very poorly written article.

You really have to take a step back and consider some of these Gartner statements from a rational viewpoint! For example:

4. Successful firms in strong economy lay off millions!

Lets think about that: if you lay off millions, they don't buy products, so strong economy dies! Title implies that laid-off people would have to seek employment at "weak" companies. Would they remain weak with the staff influx??? Increasing unemployment causes the WHOLE SOCIETY TO SUFFER. If this is the future, it is dark indeed!!

One of the big issues for the future is the need for less people to do the required jobs. In combination with ever increasing world population, what are people going to do? Fundamental changes in how the world functions will have to occur to allow people to survive and prosper without formal employment.

Perhaps as Star Trek always hints: money is irrelevant and poverty is apparently wiped out, and everyone is involved in seemingly important and respected work and have what they need to survive and prosper - of course they never discuss the details on the show!!

You really have to take a step back and consider some of these Gartner statements from a rational viewpoint! For example:

4. Successful firms in strong economy lay off millions!

Lets think about that: if you lay off millions, they don't buy products, so strong economy dies! Title implies that laid-off people would have to seek employment at "weak" companies. Would they remain weak with the staff influx??? Increasing unemployment causes the WHOLE SOCIETY TO SUFFER. If this is the future, it is dark indeed!!

One of the big issues for the future is the need for less people to do the required jobs. In combination with ever increasing world population, what are people going to do? Fundamental changes in how the world functions will have to occur to allow people to survive and prosper without formal employment.

Perhaps as Star Trek always hints: money is irrelevant and poverty is apparently wiped out, and everyone is involved in seemingly important and respected work and have what they need to survive and prosper - of course they never discuss the details on the show!!