STAMFORD, CT – A leading research firm this week laid down the Top 10 technologies to watch, use, buy, order and manufacture for 2012.

While there likely are no surprises on the list, Gartner predicts certain developments such as apps stores and cloud computing will swing into full gear in the coming months.

1. Media Tablets and Other Portables. No single platform, form factor or technology will dominate, and companies should expect to manage a diverse environment with two to four intelligent clients through 2015, says Gartner. Enterprises must figure out how to manage employees around this technology, including smartphones. Companies must also implement strategies to manage the business-to-consumer scenario.

2. Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces. The user interface paradigm in place for more than 20 years is changing. UIs with windows, icons, menus, and pointers will be replaced by mobile-centric interfaces emphasizing touch, gesture, search, voice and video; these changes will drive the need for new user interface design skills, the firm says.

3. Contextual and Social User Experience. Through 2013, context-aware applications will appear in targeted areas such as location-based services, augmented reality on mobile devices, and mobile commerce.

In terms of the “social user,” the interfaces for applications are taking on the characteristics of social networks. Social information is also becoming a key source of contextual information to enhance delivery of search results or the operation of applications.

4. Sensors that Relay Information about an Object. These sensors are also called “the Internet of Things,” which includes embedded sensors that detect and communicate changes in an increasing number of places and objects; image recognition technologies that strive to identify objects, people, buildings, places logos, and anything else that has value to consumers and enterprises – and presumably to governments, and near field communication payment. NFC allows users to make payments by waving their mobile phone in front of a compatible reader, says Gartner.

5. App Stores and Marketplaces. Gartner forecasts that by 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile application downloads from app stores every year. This will grow from a consumer-only phenomenon to an enterprise focus. With enterprise app stores, the role of IT shifts from that of a centralized planner to a market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users and potentially an ecosystem to support entrepreneurs.

6. Next-Generation Analytics. Analytics is growing from traditional offline analytics to inline embedded analytics, and from analyzing historical data to explain what happened to futurecasts, simulations and forecasts.

Over the next three years, Gartner says analytics will mature from structured and simple data analyzed by individuals to analysis of complex information of many types (text, video, etc.) from many systems supporting a collaborative decision process that brings multiple people together to analyze, brainstorm and make decisions.

7. Big Data. The size, complexity of formats and speed of delivery exceeds the capabilities of traditional data management technologies; it requires the use of new or exotic technologies simply to manage the volume alone, says the research firm. Many new technologies are emerging, with the potential to be disruptive (e.g., in-memory DBMS). Analytics has become a major driving application for data warehousing, with the use of MapReduce outside and inside the DBMS, and the use of self-service data marts. One major implication of big data is that in the future, users will not be able to put all useful information into a single data warehouse. Logical data warehouses bringing together information from multiple sources as needed will replace the single data warehouse model, according to Gartner.

8. In-Memory Computing. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. As cost and availability of memory- intensive hardware platforms reach tipping points in 2012 and 2013, the in-memory approach will enter the mainstream.

9. Extreme Low-Energy Servers. Low-energy servers are built on low-power processors typically used in mobile devices. The potential advantage is delivering 30 times or more processors in a particular server unit with lower power consumption vs. current server approaches. The new approach is well suited for certain non-compute intensive tasks such as map/reduce workloads or delivery of static objects to a website, says Gartner. However, most applications will require more processing power, and the low-energy server model potentially increases management costs, undercutting broader use of the approach.

10. Cloud Computing. Cloud has the potential for broad long-term impact in most industries. It will see the full range of large enterprise providers engaged in delivering a range of offerings to build cloud environments and deliver cloud services. SaaS providers will be called cloud providers. Oracle, IBM and SAP all have major initiatives to deliver a broader range of cloud services over the next two years. As Microsoft continues to expand its cloud offering, and these traditional enterprise players expand offerings, users will see competition heat up and enterprise-level cloud services increase, says the firm.

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