The Gartner Hype Cycle 2014 special report is out

So – here it is: Gartner’s assessment of emerging technologies for 2014. And it’s the first time in years, that I haven’t really anything substantial to requery with it. However, two things are worth mentioning:

Cloud Computing’s disillusionment

It’s “The End of the Cloud as we know it“, I said, recently. Gartner – in quite a similar way – sees The Cloud entering the trough of disillusionment with many signs of fatigue, partly accompanied by rampant “cloud washing” but also driven by many – if not all – vendors offering a Cloud Strategy although “many aren’t cloud-centric and some of their cloud strategies are in name only“. The early promises of massive cost savings are finally worn out for the benefit of more realistic advantages with a move into the cloud. And Gartner appreciates that Cloud continues to be one of the most hyped topics in IT history with organizations that develop a true cloud strategy focussing on the real benefits such as agility, speed, time to market and innovation.

Journey into the Digital Age

However, what’s far more important and interesting than the Hype Cycle itself is their publication of the “Journey into the Digital Age” which comes – according to Gartner – with 6 business era models. These models – alongside their respective driving technologies – characterize the focus and outcome of organizations operating within each of those eras. Dividing lines between them are

• the “Web” before which the only relevant era was “Analog” characterized by CRM and ERP as the most important emerging technologies and
• the “Nexus of Forces” (mobile, social, cloud and information) which seperates “Web” (as an era), “E-Business” and “Digital Marketing” from “Digital Business” and “Autonomous”

While the era of “Digital Marketing” is mostly what we see with innovative organizations these days, it is the last 2 eras that seperate the latter from the real innovators and the founders of the next age of IT (claimed by many to be called “Industry 4.0”):

• Digital Business – mainly driven by how the “Internet of Things” changes the way to do business and to interact with customers – will be the era where our physical and virtual world will blur and businesses will adopt and mature technologies like 3D printing/scanning, sensor- or machine-to-machine-technologies or even cryptocurrencies (e.g. BitCoin). We should be watching out for the main innovators in the healthcare domain to show us the way into and through this era within the next few years.
• Autonomous – to me – is the most compelling of those 6 business era models. According to Gartner it represents the final postnexus stage (which i.m.h.o. will change as evolution is ubiquitous and change is constant) and is characterized by organizations’ ability to “leverage technologies that provide humanlike or humanreplacing capabilities“. Enterprises having the capabilities to operate within this business era model will push innovative solutions of all kind, that allow normal day-2-day activity like driving cars, writing texts, understanding languages, assisting each other, … an automated – an autonomous – task.

When writing “Innovation doesn’t happen in IT” last year around the same time, I was overwhelmed by the fact, that we’re commencing to leave an age where IT was to be a discipline in itself. It is in these days, that we sense an even stronger move into IT being ubiquitous, the nexus of forces being felt in our every-day lifes and IT becoming servant of what’s really important.

I’m hoping for it being a humble servant!

(download the full Gartner Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies Report here)