The future of IT: Insider view

Industry experts give their predictions on the next 10 years of technology development

Gordon Frazer, managing director, Microsoft UK:
“In five to 10 years, your average computer is going to make today's desktop look like a pocket calculator. It won't be 50 per cent more powerful or 100 per cent more powerful, it will be 5,000 to 10,000 per cent more powerful. This power is unlikely to help you type a document or an email any faster, but it will increasingly open up an experience that is unique to each individual.”

Although the idea of personalised technology is not new, I think we are seeing it finally becoming a reality. For it to do so, three things that have needed to happen are beginning to emerge: there needs to be a natural interface between humans and computers; there needs to be a unified communications platform; and computing needs to be pervasive. The leap in computing power we will see in the coming years can enable all three.

A combination of these three technology evolutions means, independent of device, I can choose how I communicate with friends, colleagues or communities. It will mean speech, gesture and surface based computing will be an everyday reality and it will mean technology will respond to me personally. It will anticipate and help fulfill my needs because it understands me based on thousands of actions and inputs over time, not just because of the last command entered.”

Sam Schillace, Google engineering director and founder of Writely:
“The evolution of computing until now has missed one fundamental fact: people are critical - rather than a barrier - to the progress of technology. Increasingly, we want the computer to get out of our way and let us interact as quickly as we can with others.

The internet is inherently social. It brings back dialogue, the exchange of ideas and debate - but on an infinitely grander scale than before. We don't just type, store and print documents anymore - we want to share and collaborate in a manner which transcends time and geography.

We are now reaching the point where the internet is becoming the platform for how we work and play. Cloud computing - or software-as-a-service - marks a shift from the old world order where packaged versions required constant upgrades and maintenance, to a new ubiquity, flexibility and accessibility of the browser.

Of course there are challenges - providers have to put security at the centre of hosted services if businesses are to become comfortable with the model. But the simplicity of the browser means web applications and development tools are accessible to ordinary people and not just computer technicians. The potential of what is to come should excite anyone lucky enough to work in the industry today.”

Alan Nugent, chief technical officer, CA:
“Current and future access to the network and content will not be limited to traditional computing platforms. Over the course of the next decade, the number of ‘connected’ devices will increase tenfold. Complexity will continue unabated.

The growing dependence on IT coupled with the growth of technology itself creates more complexity. Mergers, acquisitions, legacy technologies and processes, and duplication of functions have heaped system on top of system, and function on top of function until we’ve reached the point where almost any IT manager will admit – at least privately – that many of his or her systems are broken and the infrastructure as a whole has grown dysfunctional and expensive to maintain.

Most IT departments spend most of their time, and nearly 80 percent of their budgets, on basic operational tasks. In even well managed businesses, just the remainder is available for improving the customer experience and increasing the strategic value of the company through the use of technology. Even when available, very often these funds are never spent on these critically important activities.

The CIOs I talk to are taking complexity head on. Not only because it is their job, but also because IT is no longer separated from the business. It is an important part of business success and great CIOs are aligning their IT with the priorities of the business.”

Chris Yapp, executive technical strategy consultant, Capgemini UK:
"The lesson of last 50 years is that technological advances can be forecast with reasonable precision but their applications are obvious only with hindsight. While internet connectivity, broadband speed and PC penetration are all in line with projections from the late 90s, Google, blogging, wikis and social networking were all unexpected. What's important is that we are seeing competition based on 'business model innovation', and this will get more fierce.

Looking to the next decade, we are expecting more innovations in developing business models based on web applications. We've already seen software as a service being rapidly adopted, but where is this going to take us? With the idea of free broadband, free online content and free open-source software, where is the revenue for businesses? Organisations need to be innovative not only to gain competitive advantage, but also to survive."

Ian Livingston, incoming chief executive, BT:
"In ten years time, speed will be variable depending on the needs of specific services. Speed as a stand-alone qualification will give way to speed as part of a particular service. Customers care about whether they can watch high-definition TV and make video calls, not what the speed is or might be. Our job is to provide the service rather than the customer having to provide the components."

Tom Bishop, chief technology officer, BMC Software:
“Virtualisation has been around for over four decades, but for much of that time has been a solution looking for a problem. Today we have found the problem.

Fuelled in part by the dot-com crash, that problem came as data centres were under-utilised, running costs soared and the resulting environmental impact was increasingly apparent. Virtualisation was the obvious answer but adoption would not be a simple process. The challenge today is not only what, where and how to virtualise but how to control a virtual world. The complexity of creating a virtualised environment has sparked fears that virtualisation may not be a viable solution.

The industry is responding by creating management tools that minimise the impact of this problem. However, the holy-grail for the IT industry in the long term is to take virtualisation to the next level with a single, all-up, scalable management solution. Get this right and virtualisation will become the enabler to critical business issues including green IT, compliance, security and true grid computing.”

Graham Smith, head of client engagement at AppLabs Europe:
“Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has in the last year confirmed its status as a defining technology for the next decade. Our research shows that more than 60 per cent of the Fortune 500 organisations interviewed are either in the initial planning stages of SOA implementation or will implement SOA within the next 18 months.
A successful SOA implementation can help companies meet their business objectives. A concern for the future is that an alarming 52 per cent of IT companies are unaware of the risks associated with implementing an SOA system. It will soon become a danger if there is a lack of quality assurance procedures or the right testing strategies in place."