Search through our UKHotViews and UKHotViewExtra articles plus complete research reports
Two weeks ago, I presented a look back ten years to the start of the decade in Last Decade, Next Decade. All last week the TechMarketView team, under the title 2020 Vision, have presented their views for how their sectors will look in 2020.
Today I’d like to give you my ‘2020 Vision’.
2020 Vision – 2003
Actually I’ve done the 2020 Vision theme before. It was the title I gave to my 2003 Prince’s Trust State of the ICT Nation Presentation. 2003 was just halfway between 1986 (when I started as an analyst by forming Richard Holway Ltd) and 2020. I presented the following chart which showed how the make-up of the ICT sector had, and would, change between 1986 and 2020. It clearly continued my ‘IT’s all over now’ theme that ICT had peaked as a % of GDP in 1999 and would fall through the first decade of the 21st Century. I got that bit right!
It also showed how the makeup would change with Mobile (Voice and Data) rising from 5% in 1986 to 20% in 2010 at the expense of Fixed Voice. How Fixed Data would rise as a % of ICT spend because of Broadband. How Hardware would ‘fall from grace’ and how SITS, mainly because of the shift to BPO and ITO, would rise from 20% to 37% of total ICT spend. We could argue about a few percentage points here and there but the general drift was ‘spot on’. The shift in the fortunes of the sectors which make up ICT will have been truly major – creating pain for some (like BT) but major opportunity for others (like Capita).
2003 was also the year that I introduced Holway’s Martini Moment – the concept of being able to access the internet “Any time, Any place and from Any device”.
Ubiquitous internet access
And that really is what will define the next decade. Internet access will become Ubiquitous. No Not spots anywhere. It might cost you a bit more to get a satellite connection at the North Pole, but access will be possible anywhere. And ‘anywhere’ will include your car. Internet access in cars will be a popular option like SatNav. I will be able to listen to the Archers on the BBC’s iPlayer or use Spotify in my car!
MIDs will also be Ubiquitous. Smartphones will be as widespread (and cheap) as today’s dumb phones. Most people will have multiple MIDs.
Every device will be internet-enabled as standard. I’ll control my gas boiler, my home security, my smart meter, watering my garden, even letting the cats in and out of the cat flap, from my MID.
Ubiquitous internet access will, in turn, make Cloud Computing a reality. In 2020 the current Cloud doubters will be akin to those in 1999 who suggested that internet retailing would never catch on. But some of today’s leading software providers will just not make the transition. I’m not suggesting they will fail but some of today’s leaders will be a mere shadow of their former self by 2020.
New exciting device announcements will come thick and fast
A decade of exciting new MID device announcements will start with the Tablet in 2010. I see the Tablet as being as ‘game changing’ for the publishing sector as the MP3/iPod was in the current decade for music. TV/Video will also go the same way with far more people consuming TV and video on their MIDs. Big screen TV will fight back with HD, 3D etc. Indeed, I see holographic ‘experience’ TV in your living room as a reality by 2020. I will be able to share a pint at the bar of the Rovers with Ken Barlow!
Where the Consumer leads, the Enterprise will follow
As you read in Puni’s post just as consumers have embraced the Cloud, so they have also embraced Social Networking. I fully agree with Puni that Generation Y will ‘demand’ that the system they use at work incorporate all the aspects of social networking that they have grown up with. Older folks may try to object but will find it as fruitless as those CIOs who tried to stop the spread of mobile phones, email, laptops, Google into the workplace.
Who will buy whom?
Consolidation will continue – indeed accelerate. Many of today’s mid-sized SITS players will disappear by 2020. The rapidly changing business model, as you read in Anthony’s IT Services post, will force some of today’s lead players to acquire to ‘get them back in the game’. I have suggested Microsoft buy FaceBook for two years now. They really need a ‘consumer-facing’ kicker. But Microsoft also needs a mobile strategy. Maybe they should buy RIM/BlackBerry too?
Conversely, small, niche ICT companies will proliferate. Everything from teenagers building Apps for MIDs in their bedrooms during half term all the way through to innovative new software and solutions.
A decade of Even More for Even Less
The next decade will mean Even More for Even Less. Another decade where the % of GDP spent on ICT will decline. But the opportunities within the ICT sector are better than ever before. The next decade will see several ‘new Googles’. Many entrepreneurs will make their fortune.
If you can forget about spiralling National Debt and International Terrorism, it might be a rather good Decade.
Posted by Richard Holway at '21:59'
