Welcome to the Hype Cycle Special Report for 2006. This year, we assess 1,500 technologies and trends across 70 IT topics, markets and industries to provide you with the most comprehensive assessment of technology maturity in the IT industry.
These Hype Cycles examine technologies and trends driving innovation in business applications as well as IT and network management, such as CRM, workplace technologies and outsourcing. The convergence of business intelligence and corporate performance management is mirrored by the merging of two Hype Cycles, while IT services and outsourcing has been split into three areas: business process outsourcing, consulting and systems integration, and IT outsourcing.
Topics
B2B CRM Technologies
Business-to-business relationships are driven by efficiencies and require different approaches to CRM strategies and technology than those focused on cultivating consumer markets. This Hype Cycle explores B2B CRM technologies, value propositions and adoption rates.
B2C CRM Technologies
Business-to-consumer business models depend on marketing, sales and service technologies for optimizing relationships with consumers. This Hype Cycle can help you understand the relative maturity of these technologies and the benefits of adoption. It provides practical advice for deployment.
Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management
For 2006, Gartner has combined the Hype Cycles for Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management into one report, as their technologies and applications converge.
Business Process Outsourcing
The business process outsourcing market is made up of several types of horizontal- and vertical-specific service offerings. Buyers of these products span entire organizations, including corporate-level executives, business unit leaders, and IT and procurement professionals.
Business Processes in Supply Chain Management
The need for competitive supply chain strategies that support growth and innovation continue to propel the SCM market forward. New, emerging technologies are challenging SCM thinking inside the enterprise as well as among enterprises across the value chain.
Carrier Network Operations
Network operations systems are the heart of telecom carriers' businesses. This Hype Cycle evaluates a range of technologies in the field of network operations and indicates their readiness for use.
Collaboration and Communication
Collaboration is about people working together. Use this Hype Cycle to make your technology assessments, but understand how business users are adopting these technologies to perform their work.
Consulting and Systems Integration
The Hype Cycle for Consulting and Systems Integration is designed to help organizations discern the relative maturity and significance of specific C&SI services before making a sourcing or partnering decision.
Consumer Mobile Applications
The creation of this Hype Cycle reflects the importance of new consumer services to mobile carriers aiming to offset flagging voice revenue. We assess the maturity of 21 applications and their value to these firms.
Contact Center Infrastructure
Advances in contact center infrastructure focus on integrating a wider range of business functions, improving channel interoperation, supporting Internet standards and using self-service. This Hype Cycle can help prioritize technology deployment decisions.
CRM Customer Service and Field Service
This Hype Cycle maps the advances in customer service and field service technologies and processes, such as speech analytics, call center software delivered as a service (on demand), feedback management and service analytics. These technologies are transforming the service experience.
CRM Marketing Applications
Interest and hype are growing in the use of technology in the marketing department. Gartner's CRM Marketing Applications Hype Cycle can help you understand the relative maturity and adoption of marketing technologies and the benefits of adoption.
CRM Sales
This Hype Cycle gives sales organizations insight into using technologies to support multiple selling channels. However, the success rates of mature sales force technologies are low, so don't assume that their advanced placement on the Hype Cycle means reduced risk in specific project undertakings.
E-Learning
Gartner's 2006 Hype Cycle for E-Learning shows the maturity level of various e-learning technologies. Before investing in e-learning more aggressively, understand the risks and rewards of each technology.
High-Performance Workplace
Consumer technologies are increasingly being adopted in corporate environments. That's why it's important to understand less-mature, more-informal HPW technologies because they eventually may help simplify work processes, reduce costs and improve intraenterprise interactions.
IT Operations Management
The IT operations market has some mature technology; however, process and technology innovation continues unabated, accompanied by the requisite hype. The IT Operations Hype Cycle will help users understand the visibility and expectations associated with these IT operations processes and technology.
IT Outsourcing
The landscape for IT outsourcing services is large. As many IT outsourcing services continue to mature, organizations should use the Hype Cycle for IT Outsourcing, 2006 to gauge the efficacy of these IT services against the reality of the marketplace to meet their business needs.
Network Service Provider Infrastructure
Network service providers are investing in next-generation technologies to counter declines in traditional revenues. This Hype Cycle identifies key technologies under consideration for deployment in their networks.
Welcome to the Hype Cycle Special Report for 2006. This year, we assess 1,500 technologies and trends across 70 IT topics, markets and industries to provide you with the most comprehensive assessment of technology maturity in the IT industry.
These Hype Cycles provide a snapshot of emerging and maturing technologies and infrastructure, including security and wireless networking, which continue to be highly active development areas. The resurgence of interest driven by hype around Web 2.0 is reflected in the new Hype Cycle for Web Technologies, which shows the maturity and benefit of technologies in the current round of Web innovation.
Technologies
Application Integration and Platform Middleware
The software infrastructure that provides the foundation for modern business applications is undergoing a transformation that directly affects architects, application developers and middleware technologists, and indirectly affects all layers of IT management and line-of-business management.
Automotive Electronics
Most innovation in cars is being driven by developments in electronics. This Hype Cycle identifies the key technologies that will affect future electronic applications in cars and examines the issues facing this industry.
Compliance Technologies
Many regulatory response activities can be made significantly easier through the use of technology. The choice of what products are used must be based on a careful analysis of risk, and it must be compatible with existing organizational culture and processes.
Consumer Technologies
Recently, the consumer electronics industry has promoted the concept of the digital home of the future, centered on connectivity and the delivery of media to multiple devices. Copyright holders must protect their content, and consumer usability and configurability problems have complicated this.
Content Management
Content, and the content management repositories where content is stored, is increasingly being linked across multiple applications. Use this Hype Cycle to determine what level of maturity your technologies are at in the market.
Data Management
Technologies and best practices for data management continue to evolve rapidly. The Gartner Hype Cycle for Data Management can help organizations understand the relative maturity of these technologies and best practices, the benefits of adoption, and key factors for successful deployment.
Emerging Technologies
The Hype Cycle for emerging technologies targets planners who advise their organizations on the adoption of emerging technologies. We feature 36 technologies that have great potential impact or that are being significantly hyped or underhyped in the marketplace.
Enterprise Speech Technologies
Speech technologies that automate call center processes are maturing, but barriers to widespread adoption remain. We show which technologies are ready for use and which need more time, both inside and outside call centers.
Human-Computer Interaction
Be ready for major shifts in human-computer interaction in the 2010 to 2015 time frame. In the meantime, focus on specific applications with quantifiable value, such as speech recognition in the call center.
Identity and Access Management Technologies
Regulatory compliance has been a major force for changes in identity and access management technologies. Several technologies, such as enterprise single sign-on, Web access management and hardware tokens, have proved they can provide business value.
Information Security
New security threats, and new security technologies to protect the enterprise, develop almost daily. Understanding the velocity of these offerings as they move toward maturity is critical for timely investment.
Infrastructure Protection
Targeted threats drove the need for more-effective and proactive infrastructure protection solutions, while the lack of mass attacks provides an opportunity for increasing efficiency in dealing with broad threats.
Linux
The Linux operating system isn't quite ready to play a major role in data centers, but is mature enough to be used widely on servers elsewhere. Its progress in the PC sector will remain slow.
Networking and Communications
Future networks will be intelligent, secure and highly automated, supporting many forms of media and collaboration capabilities in wired and wireless environments. Understanding the maturity of networking technologies will help you make more informed investment decisions.
PC Technologies
The cost of succumbing to PC hype is constant churn in the installed base with higher system image and support costs.
Portal Ecosystems
The 2006 Portal Ecosystem Hype Cycle shows evolutionary changes for several technologies, with several delivering high business benefit nearing maturity. Mainstream businesses are following the example of technologically aggressive enterprises that have successfully leveraged portals.
Printing Markets and Management
Printing touches every organization, every department and every employee. The ubiquity of printing makes it easy to take for granted, but organizations should not ignore the incremental improvements that are happening around print.
Real-Time Infrastructure
Real-time infrastructure has posted some significant gains during this, its fifth year of a minimum 10-year journey. Significant technology hype, standardization and process inhibitors still exist.
Semiconductors
We chart the progress of technologies such as transistors, logic devices, architectures and design techniques. Eventually, nanotechnologies based on semiconducting molecules and DNA structures may transform this industry.
Server Technologies
This Hype Cycle highlights the emerging technologies of server virtualization, next-generation server building blocks, increasingly dense processors and data center cooling technologies.
Storage Software Technologies
Storage management software keeps growing steadily as companies look to ensure data availability while managing costs. Regulatory changes make building and managing tiered storage infrastructures a major initiative, with emerging technologies for data reduction and content indexing gaining interest.
Telecommunications Industry
Telecom operators seek flexible architectures to deliver new services quickly while standardizing on IT to reduce costs. The telecommunications industry Hype Cycle amalgamates key technologies, solutions and platforms to ascertain market relevance.
Vulnerability Management
A changing vulnerability and threat landscape and continuing requirements for compliance-related initiatives are driving vulnerability management programs to expand. Vulnerability management consists of a combination of technologies and processes to improve security posture.
Web Services and Related Standards and Specifications
The Hype Cycle for Web Services provides information about related standards' maturity and implementations. This knowledge is critical when selecting products that use Web services and require standards-based middleware infrastructure support.
Web Technologies
Web technologies have provided broad access to information resources for years. With the maturation of Web services and Web-based portals, and the advent of Web 2.0, the Web has taken on an even more important role in IT strategies.
Wireless Hardware, Software and Services
Quickly evolving applications and platforms for wireless lead to a crowded Trough of Disillusionment. However, a number of technologies are starting their climb, developing into general business adoption by showing an ever-maturing capability.
Wireless Networking
For the Wireless Networking Hype Cycle, Gartner continues to evaluate the standards-based technologies that will have the most impact in the field. Rapid development, but slower maturation and adoption, are leading to the most crowded Trough of Disillusionment Gartner has seen.
XML Technologies
The technologies covered in Gartner's 2006 Hype Cycle for XML touch security, analytics, semantics, content, e-commerce, and the Web computing infrastructure. They affect every enterprise in every industry.
Welcome to the Hype Cycle Special Report for 2006. This year, we assess 1,500 technologies and trends across 70 IT topics, markets and industries to provide you with the most comprehensive assessment of technology maturity in the IT industry.
Many industries are undergoing radical change, and their Hype Cycles reflect the breadth of activity and opportunity that inevitably accompanies such evolution. Each Industry Hype Cycle has technologies and trends unique to its area of business - for example, technology to support traders in investment services or dealerships in the automotive industry. Industries also draw on a common set of technologies that may be at different levels of maturity across various areas.
Industries
Automotive Demand Chain Technologies
Vehicle manufacturer success will depend on the ability to create desirable products and high customer satisfaction. By using the right set of technologies, vehicle manufacturers can realize consistent and unique customer experiences.
Automotive Information and Communication Technologies
Vehicle manufacturers use vehicle-centric information and communication technologies for product differentiation and to satisfy customer requirements. To fully take advantage of opportunities, vehicle manufacturers must understand the true impact that in-vehicle technologies will have.
Automotive Supply Chain Technologies
Vehicle manufacturers' market share and profits depend on their ability to adjust production schedules to fluctuating market demand. IT departments will play a critical role in providing the infrastructure and tools to create an agile supply chain.
Banking Back-Office Technologies
Efficiency and scale continue to drive many back-office technology investments. Together with new technologies enabling business agility and speed to market, business transformation and competitive differentiation are driving back-office innovation and creating a market imperative.
Banking Front-Office Technologies
The objective of bank front-office management is to provide a consistent and satisfying experience irrespective of channel. This Hype Cycle will assist banks in assessing what new technologies to introduce while integrating existing technologies and information to achieve that objective.
Banking Payments
Emerging technology continues to reshape the payment business, and nimble competitors are attacking banking's traditional domain. Banks must selectively adopt those technologies that will retain customers, drive growth and increase business effectiveness.
Consumer Goods
Growing global opportunities and increasingly competitive pricing pressures require consumer goods companies to respond rapidly to both opportunities and threats. IT must support this environment with applications providing real-time awareness and insight across all essential enterprise partners.
Government
The Hype Cycle for Government identifies technologies that have the potential to help public-sector organizations achieve their transformation and efficiency goals.
Healthcare Payers
Included in the 2006 healthcare payer Hype Cycle are technologies that improve consumer relationships, such as sales automation, predictive modeling and personal health records, and that increase operational efficiency, such as business rule engines and electronic invoice presentment and payment.
Healthcare Provider Applications and Systems
Clinical automation within the care delivery organization is a growing reality. Next-generation clinical, administrative and financial systems enable medical error reduction, clinical optimization and evidence-based medicine. Efforts to extend the reach of these systems are increasing.
Healthcare Provider Technologies
Care delivery organizations struggle with how to allocate limited budgets as technologies and IT roles change. Each year, promising IT innovations surface. Some never have an impact, others effect evolutionary improvements, and a few drive fundamental changes in business and IT strategies.
Higher Education
The priority for many higher education institutions is to invest in technologies that will secure institutional data, manage access and preserve privacy. Institutions faced with setting priorities are cautiously investing in new and emerging technologies that provide competitive advantage.
Investment Services
Investment services firms (ISFs) are moving to a world characterized by fluidity, in which ISFs must work with more partners, diverse markets and new regulations. Emerging technologies can help by automating current processes and enabling new ones that are better equipped for change.
Life Insurance Technologies
Life insurers must adopt new technologies to support new business, underwriting, customer service and operational procedures.
Life Sciences
Life science manufacturers realize that managing the cost of creating innovative, novel treatments and products is impossible without the use of information technology. CIOs must help their companies determine the "magic mix" that will spur growth and help them achieve corporate objectives.
Manufacturing Processes and Systems
The upcoming maturity of lean manufacturing systems and product life cycle management, in addition to the emergence of a new service-oriented architecture for manufacturing operations management promise to deliver the most business benefit during the next five to 10 years.
Media Industry
Although its full impact will play out over a decade, real-time digital distribution is already transforming the landscape for every sector of the media industry. The key to success is in knowing why, when and how to respond to changes in the market for digital media.
Media Industry Advertising
Amid today's volatile advertising landscape, Web spending continues to mushroom, but advertisers are questioning traditional formats, trying to figure out how to integrate across media, and demanding more accountability from media partners also experimenting with new channels and offerings.
Media Industry Entertainment
A mix of consumer technologies and internally focused IT systems that ready the entertainment industry for the pending digital explosion form the basis for this year's media entertainment industry Hype Cycle.
Media Industry Publishing
The analog-to-digital transformation has hit publishers hard. Changes in consumer behavior, as well as competition from Web-based aggregators that can offer undifferentiated content, have caused turmoil for newspapers, magazines and book publishers.
P&C Insurance
Property and casualty insurers must embrace new technologies to improve risk management, customer service and claims handling, and underwriting profitability. Personal and commercial lines divisions will find significant benefits from their deployment.
Retail Technologies
Much is changing in the retail sector. Retailers of all sizes are now realizing that operational efficiency is not enough to compete. Effective IT solutions, or the lack of them, can now be a survival issue in the fast-paced but low-margin retail sector.
Transportation
Shippers' recent demands have exceeded carrier capacity, resulting in transportation rate increases. Government security regulations have added to the problem. Carriers are investing in technology-based solutions to lower operating costs and improve operating effectiveness and customer satisfaction.
Utility Industry IT and Business Processes
Utilities will continue to invest in industry-specific applications and improve business processes in their quest to tune business performance by meeting rising customer expectations, catering to volatile markets and creating an expected shareholder return in a changing regulatory environment.
Utility Industry Operational and Energy Technologies
Energy utilities will continue to explore technology options in their quests to meet rising customer expectations, mitigate the impact of high energy prices in increasingly volatile energy markets and create expected shareholder returns in uncertain regulatory environments.
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