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On Nov. 9th, the techno-industry's leading (and most opinionated) visionaries debated what technology trends will emerge during the year ahead at amembers-only Churchill Club event.
1. The NextWeb. Ten years after the first web browser we’re witnessing incredible innovation and systemic rethinking/reinvention in important web services, e.g. google/search, commerce, personalization, even browsers. Has the internet been underhyped? (John)
2. The Personal Electronic Health Record will be a big deal, and a lot of business will coalesce around it. It will foment new apps for data-sharing and protection, domain-specific health-oriented search and the like. (Esther)
3. Enterprise. There will no major waves of enterprise technology spending equivalent to Windows (early 90s), ERP (mid-90s) or Y2K (late 90s) for at least five years.
- The focus of enterprise technology spending over the next few years will be on operating cost savings, not competitive advantage
- one of the biggest opportunities for near term cost savings will be technology spending itself (Roger)
4. China: The Next Global Innovation Leader. We tend to look at China today the same way we did Japan in the 50's 60's and early 70's - a great source of low cost labor. China, even more so than Japan is poised to become a global leader in inventing the next big thing. Why, what, when??? (Joe)
5. Mainstream media & entertainment will relent to the Open Source Media Revolution, and allow more online content participation (e.g. Blogging, uploading of music and video) and greater transparency and collaboration of members (i.e. online social networking). This will provide a mini-boom for new content creators and blogging and social networking tools and application developers. (Tony)
6. Stem Cells Rock. (and divide, and differentiate). California will lead the world with research into embryonic stem cells, eventually leading to new therapies for many diseases. We’ll learn the intricate networks and signaling involved in hundreds of cell types, with breakthroughs through exquisite drug intervention and cellular therapies for intractable diseases. (John)
7. Cell-Phone Text Messaging. Americans will start to use cell-phone text messaging for a variety of tasks, and vendors/service providers will jump into the game, for everything from personalized marketing to drug compliance ("did you remember to take your pill at 7 pm?") (Esther)
8. Consumer technology (and content) that targets people over 30 will be more successful than products targeting younger people. (Roger)
9. Digital Living. Everything you own at home is obsolete. Throw it all out. TV'S, Stereos, CD's, DVD and all your cables. Store content once - use anywhere. (Joe)
10. A cultural move to the IT as a “utility” model (e.g. NetSuite, Salesforce, Sun’s new push to run your server room) in computing which will help keep the IT business growing overall. This trend will be driven by the continued virtualization of the workforce; where workers require web access to all business processes from anywhere at anytime, and the cost savings value of this kind of arrangement. (Tony)
To comment on the trends and program, join the Club's Online Network, free to Churchill Club members, courtesy of The Always On Network.
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