The technology sector in 2006 was characterized by diversity and growth. As forecast last year, search continued to dominate the Internet, as well as the headlines. The Internet continued its evolution into a fully commercial infrastructure, with disparities between its rules and those of traditional companies, steadily lessening. Technology’s role in the education process also matured, with digital classrooms and distance learning becoming more widespread. Open Source software became a greater force to be reckoned with, as several global software houses opened up their code to the community. Cost control was a constant theme, with technology companies making increasing use of collaborative R&D and offshoring. Consumers were offered an increasing list of connected devices, designed for a variety of applications. Technologies to facilitate man-machine interaction gained further traction, with speech recognition becoming ever more common. As ever, the highest impact technologies were those that transformed consumer behavior and became part of the common lexicon. This select group was dominated by social networking companies in 2006.
“Some of the most fundamental innovations in technology may have little to do with the technology itself.”
The outlook for 2007 looks as though it has the equivalent potential for diversity. 2007’s Predictions analyze:
- The environment’s growing influence on the technology sector
The environment provides both opportunities and pitfalls for the technology company leader who is willing to invest in this area.
- The reinvention of the userinterface
Simplicity, particularly in the user interface, is uniquely capable of democratizing and popularizing all forms of technology.
- Digital storage’s hidden costs
While the unit price of memory continues to plummet, the full cost needs to be better understood, by consumers and business users as well as by potential solutions providers.
- The emergence of biometric security
The growing value of property, both physical and digital, is likely to make the case for biometrics increasingly strong.
- The varied costs of free technology
While the lure of free offers can be appropriate, for example for nascent products and services looking to build traction, the industry should be wary of making consumers increasingly cynical, or, indeed of, permitting the cynical to subvert an application, as has happened with email in the form of Spam.
- The potentially global impact of carousel fraud
Any technology company selling into Europe should keep aware of legislative developments in the European Union around carousel fraud. Technology companies that sell into or manufacture within European borders see many attractions in this market. Management should formulate strategies for combating carousel fraud if they are to continue to reap the benefits of trading in this region.
- New combinations of existing technologies
Technology companies, entrepreneurs and financiers looking for the next big technology should, among other activities, track the evolution of existing and fundamental technologies, and consider what could come out of combinations of these.
- The technology industry’s dividend from social networking
Helping social networking companies to mature, rapidly and rationally, could represent a substantial platform for growth for technology companies in 2007.
- The emergence of parasitic power systems and the technologically enhanced human
Power-scavenging technologies are not new. Some have been around for decades. Industrial-scale scavenging technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels and wave-power generators have become a credible means of supplementing coal-fired or nuclear power plants, and their use is growing rapidly. But 2007 is likely to see power-scavenging technologies used on a smaller scale, and with far wider implications.
Continue reading about the Technology Predictions for 2007 in full-text PDF report attached below.
Other TMT Trends 2007 publications
About the report
The methodology used to generate the Predictions series is revisited every year. The 2007 series of Predictions has included inputs from conversations with member firm clients, contributions from DTT member firms’ 5,000 partners and managers, specializing in TMT, and discussions with industry analysts. This series of Predictions has incorporated two additional sources.
The first is a series of 36 interviews with leading executives from around the world, on the key industry theme of convergence. This global primary research exercise, spanning the TMT sectors, produced a wealth of insight, much of which is reflected in many of this year’s Predictions.
The second source is a column, Drowning by Numbers, that the Financial Times invited Deloitte & Touche LLP in the United Kingdom to write on a fortnightly basis. Some of the ideas for Predictions have been tested in this column.
