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Gartner Report Outlines Six Disruptive Trends in IT
TMCnet Associate Editor
A new study by Gartner Inc. predicts that 30 percent of U.S. households will use only cellular or Internet telephony by the year 2010.
According to Gartner’s “Top Predictions for 2006 and Beyond,” “growth in traditional wired voice connections will slow in North America, Western Europe and other developed markets as more people dedicate fixed phone lines to DSL links and switch to cellular or Internet telephony.”
“U.S. consumers are just beginning to add voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services to their range of telephony options, but as they get more comfortable with the technology, and as VoIP services improve, they will start to abandon traditional phones,” a press release concerning the new study states. “Mobile communications will remain the preference of developing countries, and as a result, wireless links will represent 99 percent of the world’s new voice connections in 2009.”
Ken Dulaney, vice president and analyst at Gartner, said in the press release that after 125 years, plain old telephone service “is now on the decline in the U.S.”
“Top Predictions for 2006 and Beyond” is part of a series of reports, called “Gartner Predicts,” to be released over the next year. The nearly 50 reports included in the series discuss the major trends that will affect IT users, vendors and most industries in 2006 and beyond.
“Top Predictions for 2006 and Beyond” focuses on six IT industry trends that Gartner expects will cause “significant disruption and drive opportunity for business and the IT industry …”
Other trends outlined in the study include:
- By 2008, 10 percent of companies will require employee-purchased notebooks. (“Gartner predicts that notebooks will begin to move from company ownership to personal ownership. Since notebook prices have declined dramatically during the past few years, this transition is mostly likely to be managed through the implementation of a notebook allowance, much like car mileage today.”)
- The job market for IT specialists will shrink 40 percent by 2010. (“The coming decade will see the emergence of IT ‘versatilists,’ people whose multidisciplinary assignments, roles and experiences create a valuable blend of synthesized knowledge, competencies and context to fuel business value.”)
- Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service providers will capture $11 billion of insurance revenue by 2008. (“Gartner analysts predict that by 2008, BPO will have the intellectual property and technology platforms to align with the distribution channel - for example, bank and investment houses - and launch insurance ventures that capture up to one percent of the global annual premium total of life, annuity, and property and casualty products. Using the U.S. as an example, this translates into a shift of nearly $11 billion to BPO which will have a substantial impact on the market landscape.”)
- A 50 percent growth in healthcare software investment could enable clinicians to cut the level of preventable deaths in half by 2013. (“Healthcare has historically underinvested in IT, however, this is changing. Gartner analysts predict that by 2009, healthcare investments in IT will increase by more than 50 percent, which could enable clinicians to reduce the level of preventable deaths by 50 percent by 2013.”)
- Through 2008, investigation of new technologies will slow as discretionary budgets divert to regulatory compliance. (“Gartner analysts said that regulatory compliance spending is growing at a rate twice that of IT spending, and in many case, discretionary IT budgets are entirely consumed by compliance efforts, stifling initiatives that are important to business growth.”)
“These six IT trends are expected to drive market growth, representing revenue opportunities for both incumbents and new market entrants in each space,” said Daryl Plummer, group vice president and chief Gartner Fellow, in the press release. “To catch the waves of change at their early stages, vendors, users and investors in technology will need to look outside their industries to find early adopters that provide inspiration for how these trends translate into business value.”
Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.
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