IDC 2006 Predictions

This is yearly prediction season. IDC has come out with the 2006 predictions. It predicts that moderate IT spending growth in 2006,will force many information technology vendors to rethink their product and service offerings, merger and acquisition opportunities, innovation. Predicting an acceleration of disruptive business models – "open innovation" in IT product and service development (the open source effect) and online delivery of IT as a service (the Google effect). These disruptive shifts will force most vendors to perform a strategic gut check as they enter the year.
• While predicting a slightly lower growth, IDC expects that growth oriented leaders will think creatively on all dimensions biz models included and expects the emerging markets like Chindia, ME& Africa & Eastern/central Europe.(AGREED)
• Continuing flurry of IT and telecom mergers in 2006 – particularly in infrastructure software, data and content management, IT services, and telecom.(AGREED)
• Building more open innovation communities will be a big focus for IT leaders – including Microsoft.( Looks more like a good-to-make statement)
• IT delivery has been shifting from products to services - next-generation versions of applications delivered as an online service (e.g., Salesforce.com) from one or more of the packaged application leaders (SAP, Microsoft, Oracle). (My Take - Partially agree - see my notes, Google tea leaves not all that green, Saas, SMB, Enteprise acoptions. In the transition to the industry makeover, we are seeing some thrust towards hosted model solutions. In the era of consolidation, the industry needs to get rid of this problem of huge upfront money and twenty percent plus maintenance tariffs, buyers will not be open to some of the most innovative solutions out in the market today - I wrote along similar lines on licensingand concluded, clearly the structure, style and measures of performance of software industry - particularly enterprise software industry is set to change dramatically)
• The "Google effect" will spur traditional players to hasten their move enterprise applications, information management and IT services to disruptive models. In 2006, Google will increase its presence as a disrupter in the information, application, and services segments of the IT industry. (See my note Google-Mart : Wal-Mart Style Domination In Web 2.0 World, where I wrote that if this is right, we are in for a huge change ahead – with humongous opportunities for all players operating in the ecosystem )
• IPTV, Bluray & Online music subscription – All shall see good growth/acceptance
(See my notes here - Blu-Ray and HD-DVD Give Way : Enter Holographics storage, The coming standards war, groeth of digital music, Broadband's ultimate killer app,saying that the
next emerging trend shall be the big 50-megabits-per-second pipes that the Japanese and Koreans have. Then movies, which are broadband's next killer app, can flow as freely as iTunes. Writing on ,IPTV, am less than optimisitic about huge increase in adoption, granted there may be some growth in the year ahead. IDC concludes by predicting a huge innovation wave that would swamp enterprises operating in their comfort zones. I would have loved to see a few more predictions centered around mobility and related applications, enterprise adoption of technologies( say BPM), SOA & Business process platforms, podcasting,new class of applications over the Net(Web2.0) etc covered in the list.