Maturing cloud, evolving BI headline 2011 IT trends

Understanding that cloud computing is not a "silver bullet" however just another sourcing method, and the separation of reporting and analytics within traditional business intelligence, will be two of the more evident IT trends to emerge in 2011, according to Springboard Innovation.

In its Asia-Pacific IT Market Predictions 2011 released Tuesday, the technology firm revealed that hype generated around cloud in 2009 and 2010 will give way to a "more sober, realistic understanding of the relevance and applicability of cloud computing" among CIOs and senior IT decision-makers.

"Over the then and there 12 months, we expect cloud computing to increasingly be considered alongside, and often compared to, other related sourcing approaches, including those offered by more traditional outsourcing vendors and hosted service providers," said Springboard.

The sourcing model matures

It as well pointed out that security concerns over cloud deployments will "subside slowly" through 2011 as the sourcing model matures and IT executives understand it more. Instead, IT decision-makers will have to grapple with the interoperability and integration of systems, data and processes that need to be accessed across multiple internal and external deployment environments.

Maturing HTML 5 to create app-centric Web. In the Internet space, HTML 5, the at once iteration of the Web coding standard, is expected to be formally ratified by late-2011, Springboard noted.

To prevent this, Springboard foresees that enterprises will "invest far more" in technologies, services and business processes to protect their most sensitive information assets, which could boost adoption of client virtualization.

One-stop shop to trump general-purpose IT. General-purpose IT offerings have served businesses "exceptionally so then and will continue to drive a majority of the market for years to come", the innovation firm noted. That said, it added that integrated stacks of hardware, software and services in devices and appliances will gain prominence and challenge this form of computing model in 2011.