Are you shaken?

[Andy Sjostrom]

I've always loved reading articles like the ZDNet article <a href="http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2885192,00.html">"Ten predictions to shake your world"</a>. Eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to figure out what the contours of things present will materialize into tomorrow. I pick two predictions from the article: one that I disagree with, and one that I agree with.<br /><br />I disagree with: "1. Bandwidth becomes more cost effective than computing. Network capacity will increase faster than computing, memory and storage capacity to produce a significant shift in the relative cost of remote versus local computing. Cheap and plentiful bandwidth will catalyze a move toward more centralized networks services, using grid computing models and thin clients."<br /><br />Wet dreams of Sun's Scott and Oracle's Larry. Connectivity increases with bandwidth but we want to stay fat and beautiful. In fact, the question should not be put: "Fat or thin?", since the answer is "Fat and connected, thin and connected and fat and disconnected!". Keyword: AND!<br /><br />I agree with: "7. Banks become primary provider of presence services by 2007. Presence services can manage your preferences, personal information and experience on the Internet. Gartner consider what it calls "one-click Internet" as essential to bringing convenience and mobility to the Internet. Microsoft (Passport), the Liberty Alliance, AOL, and Yahoo (among others) are vying for a piece of your presence--if not all of it. But Gartner's Claunch said that the future belongs to independent companies or financial service provides, such as the banks."<br /><br />Banks are on my top list of players that eventually will lead the mobile market. They already have my account details, stock portfolio (remains of it), knowledge about the bills I pay and so and so on. If they just could get their act together, we'll soon see the carriers "we-own-the-one-we-bill"-fantasies vaporize.<br /><br />In fact, in substance I agree with most of the predictions in the article so I am not really shaken. Are you?

[Heavy Eddie]

Interesting article.

3&4
I'm not sure that I can agree with #4. If millions of people are laid off because of these technology improvements, then #3 could never truly come into fruition. I think there is a middle ground that will be reached since in my opinion 3 is dependant on 4.

6
This is just downright cool! I want a multiprocessor PPC though :)

[dazz]

For the most part these “predictions” would not be able to shake a bowl of jelly. There is largely regurgitated drivel.

1. Bandwidth becomes more cost effective than computing

Which means…? Basically they are saying bandwidth will increase faster than computing power. How exactly do you determine that? Does it really matter? The more centralized we become the more the servers will have to handle the load. It’s no big deal for the bandwidth to be there.

Either way this is CERTAINLY not even close to “earth shaking”

4. Successful firms in strong economy lay off millions

Ya, right!! Isn’t this the same thing we have heard since the beginning of the Industrial Age?


5. Continued consolidation of vendors in many segments

Pretty safe prediction here!

6. Moore's Law continues to hold true through this decade

I think we all knew this as well. If you look at some of the research Intel and IBM are doing (and many others) it is obviously the hardware will keep improving at this rate if not faster.

7. Banks become primary provider of presence services by 2007

I actually liked this one. Seems to make a lot of sense.

8. Business activity monitoring is mainstream by 2007

In other words we will be able to build predictive modeling for business activity? I highly doubt it. This sounds a lot like Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. I think Asimov had it right though. This type of predictive modeling will work for large groups but not at an individual level.

So much of business in intuition, guesses, gut feel, etc. If things are left to a program I think that business will be trampled by competition. Predictive models for finance, inventory, supply make sense but NOT as an enterprise wide, business level decision maker.

9. Business units, not IT, will make most application decisions

We are already well down this path. Ask almost any developer, administrator or other IT professional.

Overall, this was a half-lidded annual column that has almost no real value. I think Gartner is being WAY too conservative and is not willing to make “predictions” unless they are a near forgone conclusion.

For shame Gartner.

dazz

[klinux]

Duh.

[johncj]

Typical Gartner crap. One third totally wrong, one third blindingly obvious, one third meaningless/unmeasurable.

Point by Point:

1. Bandwidth becomes more cost effective than computing

-- How many times do they get to be wrong on this one? They've been pushing this for 10 years (you can go look it up). Someday they may get a clue. It's not just bandwidth, it's the latency. You can't change the speed of light.

2. Most major applications will be interenterprise

-- The accompanying text would support the opposite conclusion just as well. So, maybe in 4 or 5 years it will happen? The problems in interenterprise applications are now business problems, not technical problems. Business changes much more slowly than technology. It's not going to happen.

3. Macroecomonic boost from interenterprise systems

-- Not going to happen. See above. Btw, they need a spell-checker, that's macroeconomic.

4. Successful firms in strong economy lay off millions

-- Don't dump your IT job just yet folks. Successful firms don't lay off millions. You heard it here, maybe not first, but you heard it here.

5. Continued consolidation of vendors in many segments

-- Duh, no kidding.

6. Moore's Law continues to hold true through this decade

-- Not exactly going out on a limb here either, are they?

7. Banks become primary provider of presence services by 2007

-- This is really the only interesting prediction here. I'm skeptical that the banks will take advantage of their opportunities

8. Business activity monitoring is mainstream by 2007

-- I disagree. I think people will be more likely to associate BAM with Emeril Lagasse than any Gartner buzzword. These are the predictions I love. They essentially boil down to the fact that nobody cares about 5 year old buzzwords.

9. Business units, not IT, will make most application decisions

-- Gartner must be selling their reports to business units and not IT. This is transparently venal. I especially like the faked probability. Hello, there's no way to measure this. If your business units and IT don't work together to make application decisions, you're sunk.

10. Pendulum swings back from centralized to decentralized

-- Whatever. Gartner seems to more of a fashion reporter than anything else. I hope CIO's have better reasons for their business choices than my 15 year-old daughter does for her clothing purchases, but maybe not.

[Mojo Jojo]

Actually this one has gotten me a little surprised. Currently there are restrictions being placed on all companies about the Privacy of information. Working for an insurance company (Travelers) that got purchased by a bank (Citigroup) they thought it would be a large marketing goldmine because of information exchange from each others databases...

Well let me tell you that isn't happening, the government stepped in and shut down that whole avenue. It had the potential to do good things like help marketing target policies that matched a persons portfolio. But also had the potential for evil like dening policies if your bank statments were erratic and what not...

Anyways the point I am going for is I can see a data repository where there is something like mass storage working out, but the minute you connect it to an enterpise that serves another funciton (i.e. banking) you can have a conflict of interest. Data mining is a very tempting, cheap, and high profit venture. Perhaps I notice you spend alot on internet purchases... perhaps you might be interested in say 'this credit card' or how about a new car loan 'with our company' instead?

Thoughts like that seem to make that prediction a little to Eutopean to me. Maybe its just the climate currently about corporate greed and coruption, or maybe it is turning out to be a proven track record...