NewsStrategyInfrastructure

In 2011 and beyond, IDC expects the technologies of cloud services, mobile computing, and social networking to mature and fuse into a new mainstream platform.

"In 2011, we expect to see these transformative technologies make the critical transition from early adopter status to early mainstream adoption," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC, according to IDC's latest research report "IDC Predictions 2011: Welcome to the New Mainstream." 

"As a result, we'll see the IT industry revolving more and more around the build-out and adoption of this next dominant platform, characterized by mobility, cloud-based application and service delivery, and value-generating overlays of social business and pervasive analytics," Gens said.

"In addition to creating new markets and opportunities, this restructuring will overthrow nearly every assumption about who the industry's leaders will be and how they establish and maintain leadership," he added.

The platform transition will be fueled by another solid year of recovery in IT spending. IDC forecasts worldwide IT spending will be US$1.6 trillion in 2011, an increase of 5.7 percent over 2010.

While hardware spending will remain strong (7.8 percent year-over-year growth), the industry will depend to a larger extent on improvements in software spending (5.3 percent growth) and related project-based services spending (3.5 percent growth), as well as gains in outsourcing (four percent growth).

Worldwide IT spending will also benefit from the accelerated recovery in emerging markets, which will generate more than half of all net new IT spending worldwide in 2011.

Spending on public IT cloud services will grow at more than five times the rate of the IT industry in 2011, up 30% from 2010, as organizations move a wider range of business applications into the cloud. 

Small and medium-sized business cloud use will surge in 2011, with adoption of some cloud resources topping 33% among US midsize firms by year's end. 

Meanwhile, the more nascent private cloud model will continue to evolve as infrastructure, software, and service providers collaborate on a range of new offerings and solutions. The vendor battle for two cloud "power positions" will be joined to determine on whose cloud platform will solutions be deployed, and who will provide coherent IT management across multiple public clouds, customers' private clouds, and their legacy IT environments.

Mobile computing -- on a variety of devices and through a range of new applications -- will continue to explode in 2011, forming another critical plank in the new industry platform. 

IDC expects shipments of app-capable, non-PC mobile devices (smartphones, media tablets, etc.) will outnumber PC shipments within the next 18 months -- and there will be no looking back. 

While vendors with a PC heritage will scramble to secure their position in this rapidly expanding market, another battle will be taking place for dominance in the mobile apps market.