Gartner tabs top 10 technologies

An “Internet of things” is among Gartner Inc.’s top 10 strategic technologies and trends for the coming year, which the Stamford-based company unveiled as part of its Gartner Symposium/ITexpo underway in Orlando, Fla.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on enterprises within three years, factoring in those that can disrupt a business, require a major investment or otherwise put a company at risk of falling behind.

The top 10 include:

• mobile device battles;
• mobile applications and HTML5;
• the personal cloud;
• enterprise app stores;
• the “Internet of things” as more, everyday devices become web-enabled;
• cloud computing and internal “cloud services brokerage” roles;
• strategic “big data” warehouses;
• in-memory computing allowing for far faster processing speeds;
• actionable analytics; and
• integrated ecosystems with companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft driving varying degrees of control across an end-to-end ecosystem from client devices to apps.

“This does not necessarily mean enterprises should adopt and invest in all of the listed technologies,” said David Cearley, a Gartner vice president and fellow, in a prepared statement. “However, companies need to be making deliberate decisions about how they fit with their expected needs in the near future.”