Technology watchers know the Demo Conference as a showplace of the very best new enterprise and consumer technologies. Astute observers also know Demo to be a leading indicator of key trends that will shape the year ahead. The process of screening hundreds of companies in order to select the 75 best reveals volumes about the state of the technology industry. (For information about Demo@15!, to be held Feb. 13-15 in Scottsdale, Ariz., see www.demo.com/demo2/.)
So, what are we going to see in 2005?
For certain, we will see many hard-fought technologies go mainstream in 2005. For nearly 10 years, we’ve seen steady progress in VoIP technologies, for example. This year, IP telephony becomes almost common, not just in enterprise telephony systems but also in consumer applications. By year-end, Skype will become a verb, as in “I’ll Skype you at 9 tomorrow so that we can discuss the matter.”
Service-based computing also will hit a tipping point, as enterprise computing organizations find increasing benefits in a hybrid model that mixes in-house IT operations with outsourced application management and as small firms gain big-company advantages by tapping service-based offerings.
Security will be reprised this year, but will take on a new note. A deluge of regulation – from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to internal HR mandates – have IT organizations looking to leverage technology to ensure compliance. Security vendors are jumping on this marketing bandwagon and will use the compliance angle to repackage an array of products.
Even in these early days of 2005, it is clear that venture capital is returning to the table. In fact, 2005 is destined to be the biggest year for venture capital invested since the boom and by a large margin. There is money to be put to work and great opportunities to make that work pay off. For the first time in my nine-year history with Demo, more than half the companies that will take part in the February conference were funded by, as one company put it, “3F: founders, friends and family.” As market segments mature, we’ll see a consolidation of technologies, either as large companies acquire missing pieces to their product strategies or as smaller companies band together to compete on a larger scale. I’m keeping my eye on the anti-spam technology providers and security products companies as two areas ripe for rapid consolidation in the first half of 2005.
It is typical, at the start of each year, to send greetings wishing health, happiness and prosperity in the new year. For the first time in a few years, it feels right to extend that wish with a sense of optimism and, dare I say it, certainty.
Shipley is executive producer of the Demo Conferences, a biannual Network World-owned event that launches and showcases the newest emerging technology products and services. She can be reached at chris@demo.com.
