Experts predict the ICT in 2011

Posted: January 18, 2011

Quest Software, host of The Experts Conference (TEC) in Los Angeles, has now published the predictions of ICT use in 2011, based on the results from the annual survey at TEC.

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Based on analyses of answers from the experienced users of ICT at TEC as well as on a historical perspective collected through annual surveys, Quest Software predicts the following 10 trends and methods within the ICT sector.

1. Rising towards the cloud
Implementation of cloud computing has fallen behind its buzz in the media, but the results indicate that growth of cloud implementations are likely to accelerate the coming years.

2. …But half will not be tied for five years
Despite increasing interest in cloud computing, almost 40% of the respondents do not think that their company have any plans to use cloud solutions. As a consequence, the implementation curve for cloud computing will not follow the traditional new-tech bell curve. Following immediate increase the growth will be slow until success with determining actors using the solutions become visible to other companies.

3. Cloud computing platform: Intensity of the battle
Only 3% of the respondents have chosen a cloud computing platform, but the choices are equally divided between Microsoft Azure Services Platform; Google App Engine, and Amazon Web Services which indicate a continuous room for intensity of the competition for market share- and dominance.

4. Emergence of new support teams
The survey proved the first indications of organizational changes due to the emergence of new support teams to support the cloud services. Leading companies acknowledge the fundamental change in supply and support of cloud services in terms of delivery options of i.e. applications.

5. Email will fly first
The results show that people are most interested in cloud services concerning emails. About half of the responding company representatives have or consider to transfer email functions to cloud services. Predictions for mature offers are still years and not months away, the survey concludes.

6. Best-of-breed trump standardization
User friendliness and scalability of multiple cloud solutions enables business area mangers to customize their own platforms and applications as opposed to dependency on centralized decisions in ICT companies.

7. Contingency plans for drop-outs
34% of the respondents believe that reduction of costs is the primary motivating force of considerations for cloud computing The issue with cloud services combined with cost reductions is the likelihood of underestimation of the need for contingency plans for when the service drops out.

8. Digital, Compliance and Security will demand high budgets
More than 40% reported their demands for support of digital interchange of information and security have increased during the past years, possibly due to legal authority or pressure to protect organizational information. 31% experience increase of needed resources for audit and compliance reporting. 70% were not satisfied with their email compliance processes. Digital information handling, compliance and security will probably be the primary motivating force for growth in support of Exchange support spending in 2011.

9. Continuing competition for desktop and storage
91% of the TEC respondents already use virtualization in their production and the rest either consider or plan to implement virtualization within the first couple of months of 2011. Server virtualization is used or considered in 94% of the participating companies which leaves the market saturated, but desktop virtualization is still optional for growth as it is now used by 46% of the companies. Storage virtualization is in comparison only used by 24%.

10. Strategies of technology investments will sacrifice cost-cutting and embrace possibilities

While many companies and public authorities continue to strictly control expenses, the TEC survey shows promising signs of economic recovery. Only 9% are still down-sizing while 54% do targeted investments. As the economy improves and the industry works to accelerate growth in turnover, reductions will be redistributed to more opportunity based investments.

To download the complete description of predictions or the empirical data, please visit TEC's survey site. Next TEC will be on April 17-20, 2011 in Las Vegas, USA.

Source: TEC 2010, Presswire