All I want for IT in 2012 (Predictions for IT in 2012)

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By Lem Lasher, Chief Innovation Officer, CSC

It’s the season for predicting what trends will be dashing through enterprises in 2012.

IDC and Gartner recently said “it’s beginning to look a lot like” a cloud and big data dominated 2012.  Here are some of the ways I see IT “decking the halls” in 2012:

Emergence of Advertising Inside Cloud Enterprises. Most of the consumer cloud — from Facebook to Gmail — is paid for by advertising. Companies will deploy the consumer model inside the enterprise, providing IT at subsidized rates or for free as companies look to reduce their IT costs.

Enterprise Data Walls Come Crashing Down. Companies have lots of firewalled data on customer spending, purchases, satisfaction and so forth but lack a predictive picture of what clients will buy more of or less of in the future. The walls between the data will come down now and companies will understand the message contained within currently discrete data.
Threats to Slow IT Investment. Increasing fear among businesses and individuals of hacking threats will cause a reduction in the gross amount of spending on and adoption of IT. Corporate funding will be diverted to expanding physical security protections, IT security measures and employee education.

War for Data Leads to Proprietary Systems. Technology companies know the gold is in owning the customers’ data and digital technology development will swing from open systems to proprietary systems.

IT Will Operate Like a Business within a Business. While historically IT has operated as a service center to the rest of the organization, businesses will demand that IT function like a business within a business. Because of the pervasiveness of IT, it will grow regardless of the economy, increasing its share of corporate costs. This will lead to a drive for efficiency and expedite the shift of IT to India.

Do you see what I see? Despite some potential for IT staffs receiving buckets of coal for budgets over the next years, IT’s development in the near term will be jolly, especially when you consider that the number of “toys” connected to the Internet will surely continue to dramatically increase in the coming weeks and months (another prediction for being such a good audience).
In all seriousness—there is positive acceleration in the multitude of ways global enterprises are deriving value from technology. Come 2013 it will be interesting to see how many of these, if any, have become reality and what global trends are influencing the next wave of IT evolution.