I've been aware of Gartner for many years because no matter what IT company I worked for, every executive swore allegiance to the Magic Quadrant. Seems like most execs believe in Gartner's prediction of the future. It also seems to me their predictions are based on quite a bit of historical fact and good research. Well, a few weeks ago they released information on their hottest technologies for 2011.

I'm not surprised that Cloud Computing is at the top. The Amazon Elastic Cloud is what enables LoadStorm to provide the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to load testing tools. We are also developing some specific capabilities that allow load testing from virtual mobile devices. Those two are the biggest focus of Gartner, so I think we are setting the right product strategy.

For more detail, I recommend you read this article on TechRepublic.

1. Cloud computing - yep, it's too obvious.
2. Mobile apps and media tablets - cell phones outsell computers and iPads are everywhere.
3. Next-gen analytics
4. Social analytics - couldn't they just had one 'analytics' entry?
5. Social communication and collaboration - Facebook anyone?
6. Video - YouTube has more searches than Yahoo's main engine.
7. Context-aware computing - oh come on, I've heard this since the 1980's.
8. Ubiquitous computing - duh, even my mother owns a laptop and smart phone.
9. Storage class memory - Flash meets RAM, ok that's cool.
10. Fabric based infrastructure and computers - fancy marketing name for flexible hardware options

    I like the list, but do you really think it took millions of dollars and rooms full of PHDs to figure that out? I mean, how hard is it to say that video is going to be very important?

    My conclusion is that Gartner is still selling to the big, slow-moving companies, so they are probably publishing at the right level for their audience. I suspect that those reading this are not surprised by this "new" information because you are already using cloud computing, and I bet you have an iPad and Android phone.