The top tech trends for 2015 address three developments: the merging of the real and virtual worlds; the advent of intelligence everywhere; and the digital business shift, according to analysts at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, held in October in Orlando, Fla.

Gartner Research defines a strategic tech trend as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise within the next three years. “Significant” factors have a high potential for disruption to the business, end users or IT; require the need for a major investment; or pose risk from being late to adopt. These technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

Here are the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2015, as identified by Gartner Research.

1. Computing Everywhere

Gartner predicts an increased emphasis on serving the needs of the mobile user in diverse contexts and environments. Phones and wearable devices are now part of an expanded computing environment that includes such things as consumer electronics and connected screens in the workplace and public space, says Gartner Research Vice President David Cearley. “Increasingly, it's the overall environment that will need to adapt to the requirements of the mobile user. This will continue to raise significant management challenges for IT organizations as they lose control of user endpoint devices. It will also require increased attention to user experience design,” he notes.

2. The Internet of Things

Gartner identifies four basic usage models—manage, monetize, operate and extend—that can be applied to any of the four “Internets.”

Enterprises should not limit themselves to thinking that only the Internet of Things (assets and machines) has the potential to leverage these four models. For example, the pay-per-use model can be applied to assets (such as industrial equipment), services (such as pay-as-you-drive insurance), people (such as movers), places (such as parking spots) and systems (such as cloud services). Enterprises from all industries can leverage these four models.

3. 3D Printing

Worldwide shipments of 3D printers are expected to grow 98% in 2015, followed by a doubling of unit shipments in 2016, Gartner reports. 3D printing will reach a tipping point during the next three years as the market for relatively low-cost 3D printing devices rapidly grows. New industrial, biomedical and consumer applications will demonstrate that 3D printing is a viable means to reduce costs through improved designs, streamlined prototyping and short-run manufacturing.

4. Advanced, Pervasive and Invisible Analytics

Analytics will take center stage as the volume of data generated by embedded systems increases. Every app needs to have analytic tools. The value is in the answers, so enterprises should first turn their focus toward big questions and big answers before big data.

5. Context-Rich Systems

Because of the ubiquity of embedded intelligence and analytics, systems will become alert to their surroundings and respond appropriately. Context-aware security is an early application of this new capability, but others will emerge.

6. Smart Machines

Advanced algorithms will allow systems to understand their environment, learn for themselves and act autonomously. Prototype autonomous vehicles, advanced robots, virtual personal assistants and smart advisors already exist and will evolve rapidly, ushering in a new age of machine helpers. The smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT, Gartner predicts.

7. Cloud/Client Computing

In the near term, the focus for cloud/client will be on synchronizing content and applications, and addressing application portability across devices. Applications will evolve to support simultaneous use of multiple devices. Gartner predicts that upcoming games and apps will use multiple screens and exploit wearables and other devices to deliver an enhanced experience.

8. Software-Defined Apps and Infrastructure

Programming from applications to basic infrastructure is essential to enable organizations to deliver the flexibility that makes the digital business work. Software-defined networking, storage, data centers and security are maturing. To deal with the rapidly changing demands of digital business and to scale systems up—or down—rapidly, computing has to move away from static to dynamic models, Gartner says.

9. Web-Scale Tech

Web-scale IT delivers the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting. More companies will think, act and build applications and infrastructure similar to Web giants Amazon, Google and Facebook.

Web-scale IT will evolve as software-defined and cloud-optimized approaches reach mainstream. The first step toward the Web-scale IT future for many organizations should be DevOps—bringing development and operations together in a coordinated manner.

10. Risk-Based Security and Self-Protection

Security can't be a roadblock that stops progress, and organizations should realize that it is not possible to provide a 100% secure environment. When organizations acknowledge that, they can begin to apply sophisticated risk assessment and mitigation tools.

Security-aware application design, dynamic and static application security testing, and runtime application self-protection combined with context-aware and adaptive controls are all needed in today's digital world. This will lead to new models of building security directly into applications.

Special Reports /

Top 10 Strategic Tech Trends for 2015

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