IT 2010 to 2020: From What We Thought to Where We're Going

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Product Management   Strategy  

In 2010, I penned an article entitled “IT 2015 - What Things May Come”. In that article, the predictions (in the opinions of researchers and pundits) of what information technologies would be emerging and maturing by 2015 was explored. Well 2015 is here, and it seems like the perfect time to see how those predictions faired. Beyond that, it also seems fitting to put a stake in the sand and create a new set of predictions on which technologies will contribute to transforming our world by the year 2020.

In the original article, the predictions were focused in the following categories:

• Virtualization: One of the Gartner Group’s top 10 technologies for 2006 still commanded the ninth position in 2010, and by 2015 they predicted virtualization would be ubiquitous and mainstream with the IT landscape. It could even redefine the way we thing of data centers. They were right. By 2020, virtualization will be one of the bedrock technologies that fuels “The Internet of Things”.
• Cloud Computing: By 2015, Gartner predicted that cloud computing would reach critical mass and mature. While there can be no doubt that cloud computing has come a long way since 2010, it still faces challenges in the area of data security. So, this prediction was almost spot-on. That being said, it is very clear that cloud computing is here to stay, and by 2020 (…

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