Gartner just published its annual Top Technology Predictions for 2010 and beyond.
The 9 summary predictions aren't earth-shattering, but they are a good summary of the key trends in computing over the coming years.
We thought we'd use it as a check-up and let you know what we're planning in the future.
Below we've listed Gartner's 9 Top Predictions for 2012-2014, and what (if anything) we're doing to be prepared:
- * "By 2012, 20% percent of businesses will have no ownership of IT assets. Fueled by technological developments in 2009, such as virtualization and cloud computing, there’s a movement toward decreased IT assets."
EchoSign: We've seen this trend accelerate ourselves in 2H'09 and into 2010. Look for EchoSign to integrate wherever contracts and content are on the web and in the Cloud. EchoSign for Salesforce, Google Apps, Zoho, Box.net, and others are just the start.
- * "By 2012, India-based IT companies will represent 20% of cloud service providers in the market. Gartner attributes this to companies leveraging their market positions and R&D efforts in cloud computing, resulting in cloud-enabled outsourcing options."
EchoSign: Ok, we're still figuring out our India strategy. Food for thought.
- * "By 2012, Facebook will lead the pack in developing the distributed, interoperable social Web * through Facebook Connect and similar mechanisms. The interoperability will be critical to survival of other social networks."
EchoSign: Agreed. Look for us to continue to move away from proprietary log-ins and support federated identities and single-sign on. Today, we support Salesforce and, to a limited extent for Apps, Google identity and interoperability. Look for more.
- * "Other social networks (including Twitter) will continue to develop with focus on greater adoption and specialization. However, they will all revolve around Facebook."
EchoSign: We added Twitter integration in December. There's more to come here as well.
- * "By 2014, building on server vitalization and desktop power management as savings in energy costs, more organizations will be driven by the need to be responsible for carbon dioxide emissions and will include carbon costs in business cases. Vendors will have to provide carbon lifecycle statistics for their products."
EchoSign: Yes. EchoSign has been carbon-neutral since founding and 100% wind powered for over 2 years. Look for us to do even more to support overall CO2 budgets especially in enterprises. For example, we signed up a leading Fortune 500 healthcare company in Q4'09 where we were explicitly placed in their overall IT/systems CO2 calculator. This will become mainstream and we'll push to support and accelerate it.
- * "In 2012, 60% of a new PCs total life greenhouse gas emissions will have occurred before the user first turns it on. In its lifetime, a typical PC consumes 10 times its own weight in fossil fuels, but around 80% of a PC's total energy usage occurs during production and transportation. Buyers will be paying more attention to eco labels."
EchoSign: We plan to enhance our labelling to further help you calculate total EchoSign contributions to your CO2 budget.
- * "Online marketing by 2015 will control more than US$ 250 billion in Internet marketing spending worldwide."
EchoSign: Online marketing means online leads which means online contracts, sales and closing. Look for us to continue to innovate ways to use EchoSign in widget and self-service fashions, as well as more connections with online sales and marketing tools.
- * "By 2014, mobile and Internet technology will help over 3 billion of the world's adults to electronically transact. Emerging economies will see increase in mobile and Internet adoption through 2014. Worldwide mobile penetration rate will get to 90%."
EchoSign: Emerging economies have not been a focus for EchoSign to date, but look for a first proactive step here in Q1 '10, with more to follow later in the year and 2011.
- * "By 2013, mobile phones will replace PCs as the most common device for Web access. A piece of advice: optimize your site for the smaller-screen formats."
EchoSign: EchoSign has offered a mobile-specific signing experience since 2006, and we've enhanced it several times to including forms, mobile Safari biometric signatures on the iPhone, and more. Today, we're principally focused on mobile for signers (vs senders) of contracts to accelerate sales. Look for even more here later in the year and next as we expand what we do for senders here as well.
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