cloud
Five Trends with Big IT Impact
Flickr Photo: kohtzyLast weekend, I was lucky enough to speak at The Arc of the USA's executive leadership conference. As usual, I did a session on social media, but they also let me trot out something new: Five Trends that Will Impact IT.
The presentation includes lots of tech stuff, of course. But one of the main points I wanted to drive home to this group of really smart and engaged leaders was the idea that tech trends aren't really just about tech: They reflect the changing world around us as much as they reflect the latest innovations.
I tried to frame most of the trends in terms of the business changes that are happening and the possibilities and challenges they create for IT.
Here are the trends:
Crystal Ball: Cloud Computing and SaaS
Flickr Photo: Tech Writer BoyHere at NTEN World Headquarters, we simply could not live without Cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS). We have staff members in three time zones -- and no IT department -- but the Cloud gives us (nearly) maintenance-free infrastructure and real-time collaboration that wouldn't be reasonably possible otherwise.
I've been talking about the cloud a lot lately as I roam the country, forcing audiences to pay attention to me. Since I love the cloud so much, I sort of assumed you all would be behind it, too. To your credit, most of you are. But there is a stronghold out there that is, shall we say, a wee bit skeptical. I'd like to respond to that with a healthy "Get Over It!", but I actually understand where the skeptics are coming from.
Enter Gartner. In another of their always insightful webinars, we got to take a look at where the cloud is now, and where it's headed. I live tweeted a bunch about this, but here are my notes in a reasonable approximation of order:







