Gartner Analyst concludes that virtualization is the most strategic technology trend for IT and business. Each year Gartner analyst examines the latest industry trends during their symposium and highlights the 10 most impactful technologies.
Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt. These technologies impact the organization’s long-term plans, programs and initiatives. They may be strategic because they enable strategic advantage from early adoption.
In forecasting the impact of the economy on IT spending, Gartner put virtualization near the top of must-have technologies. To date much of the focus has been on server virtualization, but virtualization also has many benefits in other areas such storage. Gartner analyst Carl Claunch said that in storage, for instance, virtualization allows users to “to combine different kinds and generations of storage technology.” That gives them the freedom to mix and match storage technologies based on competitive bids.
Here Gartner’s predictions of the top 10 strategic technologies for 2009:
- Virtualization
- Cloud computing
- Server Utilization
- Web Oriented Architectures
- Enterprise Mashups
- Specialized Software
- Social Software and Social Networking
- Unified Communications
- Business Intelligence
- Green IT
When you look at the list cloud computing, server utilization and Green IT are all closed associated with virtualization. Despite the ROI associated with virtualization strategies Gartner predicts virtualization adoption among business will be less than 40% by 2010. Do you agree with Gartner? What’s your prediction for the most impactful technology trend(s) for 2009? Please comment below and let us know you predictions.
Posted under Cloud Computing, Green IT, Server Virtualization, Storage Virtualization, Virtualization News, Virtualization Strategies
This post was written by Kevin Normandeau on October 15, 2008
