Gartner's Top 10 IT predictions for 2008 and beyond

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* By 2010, the preferences of users will dictate as many as half of the purchasing decisions made by IT. Because Internet browsers have made computing more approachable, “IT organizations are addressing user concerns through planning for a global class of computing that incorporates user decisions in risk analysis and innovation of business strategy,” Gartner says.

* 3-D printers will spread through homes and businesses. This emerging “technology lets users send a file of a 3-D design to a printer-like device that will carve the design out of a block of resin,” Gartner says. “A manufacturer can make scale models of new product designs without the expense of model makers. Or consumers can have models of the avatars they use online.”
These printers will be available for less than $10,000 this year, a hefty sum, but Gartner predicts that by 2011 the number of 3-D printers in homes and businesses will be 100 times greater than it was in 2006.