Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing

Whether open public clouds or closed private clouds, customers need to understand how the new models of computing fit into their plans for 2011 and beyond. Forward-thinking VARs and service providers need to think of ways to help customers remotely manage cloud service implementation and bridge the gap between public and private clouds.

Mobile Applications and Media Tablets

By the end of the year 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce, Gartner analysts say. As these new mini computers change the way we interact with data, partners must be prepared to help clients develop and support new mobile business applications and strategies.

Social Communications and Collaboration

Gartner analysts believe that social technologies will be integrated with most business applications by 2016. Partners can begin to push their customers forward next year by finding ways to help them tie together internal communications and collaborations, social CRM, and public social site initiatives into a coordinated strategy.

Video

Customers must reinvent their video strategies to meet the new realities of the marketplace. Gartner predicts that by 2013 more than 25 percent of the content that workers see in a day will be dominated by pictures, audio or video. Partners have opportunities to expand with video-friendly hardware, software, network equipment, mobile development and unified communications.

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Next Generation Analytics Business intelligence is the name of the game today and your customers are looking for technology that helps them bridge the gap between the database and workers, be it through simpler front-end interfaces, improved analytics software or better integration with mobile devices.

Social Analytics

An umbrella term that includes analysis techniques such as social filtering, social network analysis, sentiment analysis and social-media analytics, these tools will help your customers understand the structure and interdependencies and the work patterns of individuals, groups or organizations.

Context-Aware Computing

Your customers want to be able to use information about an end user or object’s environment, activities connections and preferences to better serve them. By 2013, Gartner expects half of Fortune 500 companies will have context-aware computing initiatives in play.

Storage Class Memory

Gartner believes that the rise of flash memory as a new layer in the storage hierarchy in servers and client computer is imminent. Its analysts say that the continued cost premium of solid state disk drives will give rise to a new layer not part of the file system that allows for targeted placement of items that need flash memory’s mix of performance and persistence benefits.

Ubiquitous ComputingM

The more computing is embedded into our world, the more likely that networks are going to expand out into a scale impossible to manage in centralized ways, Gartner analysts predict.

Fabric-Based Infrastructure and Computers

Channel partners may be asked to help larger customers build up architectures in the fabric-based modular form that aggregates separate building-block modules connected over a fabric or switched backplane, Gartner suggests.