Intelliclear Global Commercial Consumer IT Market Experts
Research Firm Provides Keen Insights and Perspectives with some Unexpected Twists and Plots for this Year
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, January 11, 2012 – IntelliClear today announced what it believes to be the top ten technology trends and predictions for the coming year encompassing both consumer and commercial markets. Known for bringing clarity to market IT market intelligence, IntelliClear goes beyond the usual spouting of hardware and software and ventures into developments that will impact the technology space which are more business-focused, perhaps even controversial in nature. IntelliClear’s top ten trends and predictions for 2012 are as follows:
1. Mobile Free-for-All in the Enterprise: The consumerization of IT will continue as the enterprise succumbs to a BYOD (bring your own device) environment and leverages 4G LTE networks, spawning a mad dash for increased network security and bandwidth management.
2. Blurring of Mobile Devices: The lines between laptops, tablets, netbooks and smartphones will further blur in terms of both the physical design of the devices themselves as well as how the devices are used separately and together.
3. Big Data Acceleration: The analyzing of large data sets across diverse databases, affectionately known as “big data,” will accelerate in the enterprise through the use of a wider variety of analytical tools allowing companies to reveal new levels of customer insights, business opportunities, innovation and productivity.
4. Apple at a Crossroads: Despite its release of iPad 3, the brilliantly disruptive technology company will successfully target the enterprise market directly while it begins its decline of technology influence without the vision of Steve Jobs at the helm.
5. Decreased Influence of the IT Titans: The IT environment will perceive a reduced importance and impact of the IT industry’s leaders including HP, Dell, Cisco, and especially RIM (look for a continued exodus of Blackberry users) if these companies are unable to demonstrate meaningful product innovation and continue to execute overly conservative business practices.
6. Smart TV Gains Momentum: The consumer electronics space will experience further proliferation and innovation of the integration of the internet into modern TV sets and set-top boxes, including the convergence of computers with television sets and set-top boxes.
7. Turning Point of Physical Media: The onslaught of solid-state memory (which is getting faster, higher capacity, and cheaper), coupled with ondemand streaming services, will facilitate the ongoing decline of optical disc players, media and traditional computer hard disk drives.
8. Further Android Fracturing: Although the Android OS will continue to find its way onto a variety of products, the growing number of Android app stores and a variety of modified open source Android OS versions in use, will leave Android without a coherent branding strategy—at times leaving Google entirely out of the picture (e.g. Amazon.com).
9. Windows 8 Hits the Ground Running: Set to release in 2012 as companies accelerate their exodus from Windows XP, Windows 8 will add support for ARM microprocessors (fully backward compatible), a new Start Screen accommodating touchscreen input (i.e. Metro), a new authentication method, a ribbon interface for Windows Explorer, USB 3.0 support, and a Windows Store—making OS migrations to Windows 8 more compelling for consumers and enterprises.
10. The Ever Rising Facebook Platform: After releasing its frictionless sharing vision last fall, which is likely to bring to an end manual curation, Facebook is further positioning itself as the core platform for the lives of online users, as well as businesses (e.g. Netflix).
“As technology industry analysts we all have fun with these types of predictions, but for 2012 it was clear to our staff that the industry will be affected by much more than the bits, bytes and designs,” says Eric Shuster, CEO of IntelliClear. “We are witnessing potential shifts in the balance of power among traditional players and technologies that could lead to disruptive events shaping a next generation of innovation and industry leadership.”
