Butler predicts tech trends for 2007
19 Dec 2006
So what''s in store for 2007? Will Organisations look to remote management delivered from offshore locations? Will radio frequency ID tags (RFID) start to be used at the product or item level rather than on pallets and containers. What will the key challenges for the CIO and CEO be – ''Green IT'' perhaps? How will Windows Vista and Microsoft 2007 fare when it comes to enterprise deployment - could Microsoft be in for a disappointment?
Analysts
at Butler Group, Europe''s leading IT research and advisory
organisation, give their viewpoint of what lies ahead
and what can be expected to unfold in 2007.
SharePoint-based solutions to exceed all expectations
While Microsoft will be disappointed with the number of
enterprise deployments of Windows Vista and Microsoft
Office 2007 during the coming year, deployments of SharePoint-based
solutions will exceed all expectations.
Microsoft''s apparent commoditisation of the ''enterprise content management (ECM) market could well start a price war amongst established vendors as they try to up-sell and compete with Microsoft. Those vendors with large ECM product portfolios will consider discounting their ''document'' and ''records management'' modules in the hope of securing more business down-the-line.
Consumer-oriented
internet- and web-based technologies will continue to
infiltrate the workplace, and these will cause many CIOs
to re-think their information worker strategies.
Richard Edwards, senior research analyst, desktop
and client strategy
Green
IT: Power efficiency issue within IT firmly under the
spotlight
Improvements in many areas of the IT infrastructure –
better processor performance, higher levels of throughput
and greater disk densities, to name but three – have
led to a general acceptance that everything is getting
better, faster and more efficient.
There is, however, one area where efficiency is lagging – and that is in the area of power performance. This leads to concern about the cost of maintaining the IT infrastructure, especially in data centres which can have a power efficiency level as low as 70 per cent.
When
one considers that a domestic gas or oil central heating
boiler runs at around 80 per cent efficiency, and these
are coming under close scrutiny to make them more efficient,
it is clear that the whole power efficiency issue within
IT is now firmly under the spotlight.
Mike Thompson, BPM practice director, IT policy
and strategy
Legacy ERP and methodology confusion will hold back
SOA progress
In spite of the biggest vendors'' best efforts, enterprise
resource planning (ERP) customers will not be persuaded
to upgrade during 2007, merely to gain flexibility.
Genuine business needs will drive the upgrade cycle – and this must be met by delivering new functionality not dressing old applications in new clothes.
Although
service oriented architecture (SOA) is seen as an essential
construct for enterprise applications by the majority
of vendors, it will take a number of years for the market
to catch up.
Teresa Jones, senior research analyst, enterprise
applications
SOA methodology will become mandatory
For those that do embark on more ambitious SOA projects,
the use of a methodology built around the requirements
of SOA will become mandatory.
To-date, most of the initiative towards creating SOA methodologies has been taken by the system integrator community, but software vendors will start to view the delivery of a methodology to be a competitive differentiator.
Consequently,
we could face methodology proliferation, which could actually
add to the confusion around SOA implementations.
Rob Hailstone, software infrastructure practice
director, software infrastructure
Virtualisation to dominate the data centre
The virtualisation of the IT infrastructure, including
servers, storage, networks, and clients, is a key technology
to improve the flexibility and utilisation of the data
centre. In a competitive market, EMC is the dominant technology
provider, but will be chased by other solution and service
providers including HP, Cisco, and IBM.
Microsoft
will continue to build a diverse capability in this market,
and following on from the acquisition of Softricity, and
the recent 
agreement
with Novell, Butler Group expects the company to extend
its reach through further partnerships in order to strengthen
its offering. Ardence and SWSoft are potential targets
for acquiring vendors.
Roy Illsley, senior research analyst, infrastructure
management
Measuring business value of IT will be a key challenge
Although IT is maturing as a business function it still
lacks some of the accepted methods, comparable to those
found in other areas of the business, for measuring the
value that it delivers.
The
outcome that is sought is business value, enabled by IT,
rather than IT value per se. This makes it essential to
establish a formal framework that can be used by both
business and IT leaders to support value measurement.
Initiatives such as ValIT and the IT Capability Maturity
Framework (IT-CMF), and the broader use of 
Project
and Portfolio Management (PPM) tools are supporting this
move, but above all it requires the development of a common
language and frame of reference for describing business
value, and for agreeing the appropriate metrics by which
individual projects should be measured. This will be a
key challenge for both the CIO and the CEO during 2007.
Tim Jennings, research director, IT policy and
strategy
The "Microsoft Effect" on the security market
will be significant
During 2007 expect the ''Microsoft effect'' on the security
marketplace to be significant. At the moment there is
something of a phoney war going on between Microsoft and
leading security vendors such as McAfee and Symantec over
Microsoft''s Kernel management approach to the 64-bit version
of Vista.
Other
security organisations such as Aladdin and Sophos believe
that Microsoft is right to take this one-time opportunity
to adequately protect its core. This and other incursions
into the security arena will keep Microsoft in the security
limelight.
Andy Kellett, senior research analyst, security
Enterprise service bus (ESB) will start being commoditised
The factors are all in place for the ESB market to start
to become commoditised. There are more vendors than the
market will be able to support in the long-term, and this
will result in price-pressure.
At the same time, open source products offering ESB functionality will start to impact the market, moving revenue away from up-front license revenue towards periodic maintenance fees.
Finally,
SOA will become more approachable by mid-sized organisations,
increasing the demand for entry-level products at cost-effective
price-points.
Rob Hailstone, software infrastructure practice
director, software infrastructure
BPM will reinforce its position as a mainstream technology
Business Process Management (BPM) will reinforce its position
as a mainstream technology, with a great deal of emphasis
on the decomposing of processes into finer levels of granularity.
The coming year will also see more importance attached to the issue of process discovery from existing assets rather than modelling process from a green-field site.
There will be a greater degree of understanding of the
benefits of business
rules, and how these need to be implemented as a service.
This requires a separate management solution and the business
rules management system (BRMS) space will grow in respect
of both understanding and adoption.
Mike Thompson, BPM practice director, business
process management
Performance management to drive BI deployments; consolidation
to continue in supplier market
The trend for vertical and readymade solutions will continue
as pure-play vendors continue with their efforts to put
more distance between themselves and Microsoft.
In particular there will be a number of new pre-packaged applications for corporate performance management for MiFID, marketing management, and retail.
Consolidation
will continue in the supplier market with the acquisition
of disruptive vendors such as SeeWhy by pure-play BI vendors.
Platform vendors IBM, Oracle and SAP are likely to make
acquisitions too.
Sarah Burnett, senior research analyst, business
intelligence
Increased flexibility for outsourcing; boost for offshore
remote management to cut costs
It will finally be clear in 2007 that few organisations
will consider going back to lengthy, single-supplier outsourcing
deals. The large number of existing deals reaching renewal
stage will reinforce the trends towards deals of shorter
duration, regular reviews of objectives, and the involvement
of multiple vendors, which are making successful outcomes
in outsourcing engagements into moving targets that can
only be achieved by ever-closer partnerships.
Organisations looking for ways to cut spiralling data
centre costs will see remote infrastructure management
delivered from offshore locations as a realistic option.
Costs of maintaining up-to-date skills in 
data
centres, and of investment in technology transformation
such as consolidation, and advanced management capabilities,
are strong drivers towards this type of service, which
has undeniable financial benefits that we believe should
be considered carefully.
Alan Rodger, research analyst, outsourcing and
services
Fixed mobile convergence set to gain significant traction
Fixed mobile convergence (FMC) is set to gain significant
traction throughout 2007.
Either
through the use of private GSM networks, or WiFi, mobile
phone usage is about to undergo a radical change, which
will at last 
hand
control back to the organisation and bring a new degree
of flexibility and innovation, by providing the ability
to integrate mobile phones into the enterprise network.
Mark
Blowers,
senior research analyst, mobile and wireless computing
More emphasis will be placed on unified security
As a direct result of the consolidation that has taken
place in the security market over the past twelve months,
during 2007 expect to see more emphasis being placed on
the requirement for unified protection and network infrastructure
security systems. One example is Unified Access Control
– products that enable organisations to understand
all devices that operate across their networks, and then
extend their reach to controlling how such devices should
be evaluated and managed as they attempt logon, including
the evaluation of device acceptability and end-user authentication.
Andy Kellett, senior research analyst, Security
Agile methods aid development maturity
In the past application development in IT departments
was typically an ad hoc process driven by a ''hero'' (or
inspired individual) — what the capability maturity
model integration (CMMI) would describe as level 1 (of
5).
Today
we find Agile approaches taking the developer community
by storm and we expect 2007 to see continued growth in
adoption of what are highly disciplined methodologies
that developers also enjoy using, from extreme programming
and SCRUM to DSDM and other variants.
Michael Azoff, senior research analyst, application
development
RFID
tags will start to be used at the product/item level
The supply chain is an area where technology can deliver
real benefits – radio frequency identification (RFID)
is revolutionising the way that products are manufactured,
tracked, bought, and sold.
During 2007 RFID tags will start to be used at the product or item level rather than on pallets and containers.