Top 10 gloomy analyst predictions for 2011 and beyond

A gloomy round-up of industry analyst predictions for the coming years

1) Gartner - Sabotage - By 2015, a G20 nation's critical infrastructure will be damaged by online sabotage. Gartner warns that if a stock market were targeted it would have a long-lasting negative impact on a country. It compares the likely significance of this with the damage caused to the US by the September 11 terrorist attacks.

2) Quocirca - The cloud will burst. Initial attempts by many companies to adopt cloud will show some of the issues, including latency, service levels and lack of predictability, which will make organisations wonder if the cloud is all it has been built up to be. There will then be a strong drive for an agreed standard around technical contracts, and for monitoring and managing performance across private and, to a lesser extent, public clouds. This will not bring the cloud down but will slow migration while expectations are reset.

3) Quocirca - The IT department struggles. As migration to the cloud continues, the IT department must act as the translator between what the business needs and how those functions are best served. Jobs will be lost. Many organisations will not be able to cope with the movement from an in-house data centre to hybrid cloud and back again - where it has faced problems with the cloud - see 2) - and businesses may struggle to survive.

4) CSC Insight - Tablets fail to live up to the hype. Beyond the sale of iPads, tablets will fail to meet expectations. All leading mobile device manufacturers will produce tablets, which will result in the overstocking by distribution channels and inventory problems. Margins will fall to zero as discounts will be introduced to clear channel excesses. Low-cost Android tablets will hinder market potential by damaging consumer perceptions.

5) Ovum - Data centre transformation. The role of the data centre is witnessing a dramatic shift as the cloud computing era heralds a new dawn in the delivery of IT services in 2011. This shift will transform current organisational thinking about the value of building and operating large complex data centres.

6) Quocirca - Social networking continues to confuse, bemuse and amuse. Organisations continue to struggle to figure out exactly how to play the social networking field. Employees will keep posting inappropriate comments that embarrass businesses, potentially resulting in court cases.

7) Ovum - IT financial management. The CIO should talk the language of business and employ better IT financial management in 2011. Changes are needed to improve the IT department's relevance to an organisation and prove the value of IT investment to the business. Better financial management can help with this.

8) Nucleus Research - SAP faces some challenges. SAP will shrink as companies now have credible alternatives (Oracle, NetSuite and others).

9) Forrester Research - Compulsory cloud standards still won't be here, get over it. Despite promising efforts by the DMTF, NIST and the Cloud Security Alliance, the market remains too immature to introduce compulsory standards. However, that won't mean a lack of progress in 2011; we are likely to see draft specifications next year.

10) InfoTrends - Economic doom and gloom. With continued economic uncertainty, the global economy continues to be the major issue for business in 2011. Austerity measures in Europe will affect public sector business and confidence in general.