The 5 Forces that Could Derail High-Tech Markets

The 5 Forces that Could Derail High-Tech Markets

Gartner analysts identify the five disruptive factors they claim could force enterprises to change the way they attack their prospective markets.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 communities have paved the way for new startups offering alternatives to technology incumbents, such as Microsoft and IBM. Traditional businesses must embrace these new models or risk losing market share.

SAAS

With traditional, perpetual software licenses, the software maker typically took little responsibility for results. With SAAS (software as a service), service providers will be held to higher standards based on results.
Global-Class Systems

Global-class systems, or system architectures of many computing nodes serving as one system (think Google and its server farms), threaten to upset the balance of power between IBM and Microsoft in the messaging market. Gartner believes these global-class applications and systems will account for more than three quarters of the software delivered via SAAS by 2012.

consumerization

consumerization is creating an "IT civil war" between smaller companies focused on innovation (by looking to consumers to drive their product development) and vendors focused on traditional control and management.

Open Source

Open source enables many elements of these other four discontinuities to develop, but there are oodles of issues with this model. While its acquisition cost is low, total cost of ownership is a burden as multiple distributions lead to administration complexity.

Gartner believes any one of these forces can upset the balance of power between users and their IT organization (or between vendors in a segment). Put the five together and let them amplify each other's dislocating impact, and there is major trouble, along with big opportunities for the quick and nimble, looming.

能够改变IT格局的五大技术

知名调查分析公司Gartner通过分析调查，宣布五大技术会改变现今的IT格局。

1.         Web 2.0：Web 2.0社区已经为技术变革开始布道，比如微软、IBM。传统的IT商业组织必须拥抱这个技术，否则就会丢掉市场份额。

2.         SAAS：传统的软件生产方式、认证和标准下，通常软件厂商跟软件最终的结果关系不大。但是有了SAAS（software as a service），服务而不仅仅是软件提供商，将为最终的结果担负更大的责任，也会提高标准。

3.         Global-Class Systems：Global-Class Systems，或者说是许多电脑节点作为一个系统的方式（像Google的服务器之间的关系），可能将会打破微软和IBM在信息通讯领域的格局。Gartner相信，到2012年，Global-Class应用将超过届时SAAS软件总数的四分之三。

4.         企业消费者化（consumerization）：企业消费者化会带来“IT内战”，小公司集中于面向以消费者为导向的产品，而大厂商集中于传统的管理和控制。

5.         开源：开源使上述四种技术更好地得到开发和应用。但运行方式仍是需要解决的问题，虽然开始时的直接成本降低了，但最终花费会由于多版本带来的管理花费而上升。