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Our Wired Future?

Global sourcing, a connected society and real-time infrastructure that tracks our every move are predicted to be the most significant technology driven shifts in the next decade

A recent survey of 956 CIOs across the world show that modest growth is returning to IT budgets in 2004. Further evidence is seen in several parts of the industry that returned to healthy growth in 2003, including the PC and mobile phone area where shipments increased by 10.9 percent and 21 percent respectively.

"The global economy has improved to the point where companies have made a significant shift from protecting profitability to a focus on driving growth, creating a radically different environment, " says Michael Fleisher, Gartner Chairman and CEO. "While IT leaders must continue to maintain vigilance around tight cost control, they now face the challenge of driving innovation and growth within their enterprise. "

To illustrate the magnitude of change to be expected, Gartner highlighted what it considered the most significant technology driven shifts during the next decade.

Global sourcing

One of the most significant shifts caused by IT in the near-term is the reality of offshore or global sourcing. Increasing-ly, companies will aggressively leverage technology investments and increased connectivity to access lower-cost, high quality labour.

"Offshore outsourcing has become a political issue rather than an IT issue, " says Steve Prentice, GVP and Chief of Research for hardware and systems at Gartner. "The only way for the developed economies to compete is by getting smarter, not cheaper. "

To thrive in this environment, he says IT leaders must become active participants in creating the new top end -- in understanding and driving the next wave of innovation and growth.

The connected society

During the next decade, there will be a subtle but highly profound shift at the intersection of the real world of people, objects and places, and the virtual world of information, according to Gartner. Information technology will move from being something separate and apart from us, to being as much a part of our everyday experience as our clothes and personal belongings. Four technology areas will be key in creating and supporting this:

Sensor networks -- Will provide new ways to measure and monitor physical environments in minute detail -- with almost no human effort. Everything will be connected, and its location known. We will use sensor networks to increase efficiency, reduce costs and have better insights into the immediate future of our businesses. Technology advances will give RFID devices the path to evolve into sensors.

Always on technologies -- Including PDAs, smart phones, SPOT watches, Bluetooth headsets, MP3 players, coupled with wireless communications technologies.

Data storage and access -- Storage will improve so rapidly that the cost of keeping everything will be cheaper than the cost of deciding what to keep. This will result in a phenomenon called "perfect recall" -- digital trails that capture people's every move and which can be reclaimed when needed.

Real-time infrastructure -- Will use sensor network management technology and event driven architecture to build tera-architectures capable of capturing, storing and analysing trillions of transactions. This is how we will understand and use the data from connected devices.

"Sensor networks will be common in five years and everywhere by 10 years, " said Martin Reynolds, GVP and Research Fellow at Gartner. "A hospital could track every patient and every pill in the buil-ding. Airlines could track every passenger and every bag. "

"The challenge will be to develop an IT infrastructure that can make sense of the tidal wave of information. "

Real-time infrastructure

The underlying technology "mega-trends" of a connected "always on" society, where people have easy access to wireless bandwidth and personal wearable devices, are combining with the trends of globalisation and the need for greater transparency and accountability. This will force enterprises to transform their business to respond more effectively to time-based competition, which Gartner calls Real-Time Enterprise.

The key to this transformation, alongside changes in business processes and personnel attitudes, is a more agile or "Real-Time Infrastructure" (RTI).

"The falling cost of computing power and network bandwidth will make it possible, if not mandatory, to connect almost anything -- from refrigerators and elevators in "smart buildings, " to personal devices and wearable computers, " Mr Reynolds says. "We are on the path to so much connected 'stuff' that we'll have to stop managing it. RTI is a three- to ten-year vision and a first step to zero-management systems that will allow scalability without cost. "

Privacy no longer means anonymity

Over the next decade, Gartner predicts that whether we like it or not, technology is going to become very intimate. The future is a world where everything is connected to everything -- always watching, recording and transmitting information about people and machines all around.

"The opportunity for enterprises is a new world where digital trails lead to 'perfect recall' of new types of information about customer behaviour, " says Nick Jones, VP and Research Fellow, Gartner. "For the individual this means that privacy has changed. The battle is no longer about who collects your data, but who gets to use it. "

"This makes privacy policy one of the most crucial decisions during the next decade, " he says. "Trust takes years to establish but can get lost in a moment. "