End of the year is as ever favorite time of most analyst firms for rolling out predictions, forecasts and all sorts of watch lists for the coming year. Especially of interest are those from most influential analyst powerhouses, like Gartner for example. Last week Gartner – the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company –issued its “Top Technology Predictions” for IT organizations and users for 2011 and beyond. Let’s have a closer look at some of them which we find are worth sharing:

• Twenty Percent of Non-IT Global 500 Companies to Deliver through the Cloud. More and more – 20 percent – of non-IT companies in the Global 500 will continue to deliver products and services through the cloud, becoming de facto cloud computing companies by 2015. That means the role of IT decision making gets broader, and non-IT companies find themselves competing directly with IT service providers.
• IT Automation Results in Tangible Costs Savings through Man-hour Reductions. Self-service and automated provisioning associated with cloud delivery means productivity levels for service providers will increase—Gartner estimates a 25 percent reduction in IT labor hours by 2015.
• Consumerization of IT Transitions to “Postconsumerization”. Gartner predicts “postconsumerization” as one of the major trends for the upcoming years where instead of IT focusing on devices, apps and infrastructure, IT will shift to address info and peer-to-peer interaction. It is expected that ninety percent of companies will support corporate apps on personal devices like mobile, laptops and tablets, by 2014.
• Tablets Get Enterprise Support. iPad is just the first in a long future line of media tablets focused on “communications and consumption” of data instead of “creation” . As a result, 80 percent of enterprises will offer support for network connectivity, email, calendaring, and help desks by 2013 on tablets, says Gartner.
• National Infrastructure Hacked and Disrupted. By 2015, Gartner predicts at least one of the G20 nations will be the victim of dramatic online sabotage that will disrupt and damage critical infrastructure components. Whether it’s a stock exchange, physical nuclear plants or mobile-phone message routers, the analyst firm says attacks with lasting damage are only a matter of time.