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By Eric Savitz, Forbes Staff

Another day, another top 10 list from Gartner, which this week is playing host to 10,000 IT pro at the Gartner Symposium IT Expo in Orlando.

Yesterday, the research firm laid out “10 critical tech trends for the next five years.”

Today, Gartner took a look at a little closer in, providing a list of the “Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013.

You can see the list in the box.

Here are a few of their notes on each of the 10 trends, as laid out in the Gartner slides for the presentation:

Mobile device battles: Mobile experiences eclipse the desktop experience. Consumerization drives tablets into the enterprise. Cloud and mobile are mutually reinforcing trends. Bring your own device trend accelerates. In 2013, mobile devices will pass PCs to be most common Web access tools. By 2015, over 80% of handsets in mature markets will be smart phones. 20% of those will be Windows phones. By 2015, tablet shipments will be 50% of laptop shipments, with Windows 8 in third place behind Apple and Android. Microsoft‘s share of overall client platform will fall to 60%, and could drop below 50%. In smartphones, Windows could pass RIM to be #3 player, and could be same size as Apple in units by 2015. Windows 8 will be “relatively niche,” with mostly appealing to enterprise buyers.
Mobile applications & HTML 5: Through 2014, JavaScript performance will push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream application developer environment. There will be long shift to HTML5 from native apps as HTML5 becomes more capable. But native apps won’t disappear, and will always offer best experiences.
Personal Cloud: Cloud will be center of digital lives, for apps, content and preferences. Sync across devices. Services become more important; devices become less important.
Internet of Things: Internet of things is already here. Over 50% of Internet connections are things. In 2011, over 15 billion things on the Web, with 50 billion+ intermittent connections. By 2020, over 30 billion connected things, with over 200 billion with intermittent connections. Key technologies here include embedded sensors, image recognition and NFC. By 2015, in more than 70% of enterprises, a single exec will oversee all Internet connected things. Becomes the Internet of Everything.
Hybrid IT and Cloud Computing: Changes role of IT. IT departments must play more roles in coordinating IT related activities.
Strategic Big Data: Organizations need to focus on non-traditional data types and externa data sources. Hadoop and NoSQL gain momentum. Big data will meet social. Five richest big data sources on the Web include social graph, intent graph, consumption graph, interest graph and mobile graph. Concept of single corporate data warehouse is dead. Multiple systems need to be tied together.
Actionable Analytics: Cloud, packaged analytics and big data accelerates in 2013, 2014. Can now perform analytics and simulation on every action taken in business. Mobile devices will have access to the data, supporting business decision making.
Mainstream In-Memory Computing: Changes expectations, designs and architectures. Can boost performance and response times. Enables real-time self service business intelligence. SAP and others will accelerate delivery of applications in 2012/2013 to leverage in memory capability.
Integrated Ecosystems: More packaging of software and services to address infrastructure or application workload. There will be more shipment of “appliances,” with software delivered as hardware. New trend: virtual appliances, which Gartner sees gaining in popularity over the next five years.
Enterprise App Stores: By 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile app downloads from app stores every year. Also by 2014, most organizations will deliver mobile apps to workers via private application stores.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/10/23/gartner-top-10-strategic-technology-trends-for-2013/

By Barb Mosher (@barbmosher) Mar 8, 2012

The decision to move to the cloud has traditionally been about operational efficiency, but according to IBM’s research, we’ll soon start to see organizations take advantage of the cloud for business initiatives and that kind of stuff is a whole lot more fun.

We had the opportunity to talk about the IBM study with one its authors, Saul Berman, Global Lead Partner for Strategy Consulting and Innovation and Growth for IBM Global Business Services. It’s important to point out that this study was conducted from a business perspective and not a technology perspective, which is a refreshing approach to understanding how the cloud can work for your business.

Editor’s Note: Read the full study: The power of cloud. Driving business model innovation (1.35 MB PDF)

The Power of the Cloud IBM Study

This study was conducted through the IBM Institute for Business Value, in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit. It included 572 business and technology executives across the world, in organizations ranging from large (greater than US$ 20 billion) to small (less than US$ 1 billion). The results?

That, although many organizations focus cloud initiatives on operational efficiency, we’ll see that slowly decrease over the next few years (from 55% to 31%) in favor of innovative business plans, like new lines of business/industries, new pricing models and better partner collaboration.

When surveyed, here’s what items topped the cloud adoption list for most organizations:

Tapping Into That Power

One issue that has the ability to slow down the use of cloud models for innovation is that many organizations still see the cloud as an IT solution. But as its importance starts to reach further into the business, the opportunities available are being recognized.

IBM notes six “game-changing” business enablers that will transform how organizations leverage the cloud for business innovation, shown below:

Cloud Enablement Framework

It’s not a cloud maturity model, you aren’t going to move your organization through each phase:

IBM Cloud Enablement Framework

The framework looks at two things: the customer value proposition and the value chain. Along each of these dimensions there are different types of organization models. You need to look internally and decide where in this model your organization fits. Are you:

An Optimizer: Optimizers are about enhancing what they have now and improving operational efficiency. They aren’t ready to take the risks and therefore won’t get the revenue and market share gains that Innovators or Disruptors will. But the opportunities are there to deepen relationships with customers and enhance products and services.
An Innovator: Innovators take advantage of the cloud to greatly extend the value proposition. This can change their role in the industry and/or lead to new markets or industries. It’s about extending what they have and transforming in ways that lead to new revenue streams and market opportunities, thus gaining competitive advantage.
A Disruptor: For a Disruptor, it’s about radical change, creating new markets/industries or disrupting existing ones. It’s big risk for big reward.

Berman says you can choose to evolve over time from one type to the next, but some organizations are going to be innovative or disruptive from day one. He points to the media/entertainment industry as an example of an industry where you might want to focus more on innovation and disruption than worry about an existing business model that may be under attack.

Source: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/ibm-research-shows-how-the-cloud-is-driving-business-model-innovation-014796.php