[LINK] ICT Predictions 2009

[Tom Worthington]

The Canberra Times newspaper  included an item with predictions of 
what will happen with computers and telecommunications in 2009 ("Big 
loads in gloomy paths", Simon Grouse, Canberra Times, 5 January 
2009). Here is a summary of mine:

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... Moore's law will result in the ICT spend reducing in 2009, while 
delivering more service.

Telcos will sell a lot of 3G wireless broadband accounts, with the 
price dropping significantly.

Small laptop "netbooks" ... costing $500 dominate the laptop market. 
Netbooks will come with 3G wireless built in and many will be sold on 
plans with a broadband account, like mobile phones. ...

The National Broadband Network tender process will be cancelled and a 
new strategy incorporating wireless broadband ... will be announced 
... as an "enhancement" to the policy. Telstra will get some of the 
business as a result, but not as much as it would like.

The attempt to rationalise the Government's existing servers into a 
few large data centres will be abandoned ... Instead ... new energy 
and space-efficient equipment ... will reduce the number of servers 
needed to one for each 50 existing servers  ...

The 10,000 m2 ... of large government data centre space the Gershon 
Report found in Canberra, will be reduced to about 100m2. Private 
enterprise ... wanting to build large commercial data hosting 
services will be disappointed by the small size of the requirements.

Big screen iPhone-like smart phones will keep being released and by 
the end of 2009, some useful business applications will arrive to 
justify their purchase by business and government.

The Australian Computer Society's Green ICT course will become the 
internationally recognised standard certification for the industry. 
ICT professionals will start including energy and carbon emission 
estimates in their ICT plans. Many will go on to become the chief 
sustainability officer of their organisation, covering more than just 
computers. Promoted by climate change concerns, new hardware and 
software will result in a lower ICT budget for most organisations.

Due to the concentration of government jobs in Canberra, its poor 
public transport and child-minding shortages, the city will lead 
Australia in teleworking.  ...

By mid-year the Government will have got its online policy 
consultation to work. ... public servants will find it more effective 
to submit proposals through this process than through ... internal 
committee systems. As a result most interdepartmental committees will 
become virtual ...

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Also quoted were: Ann Stewart, Australian Government Chief 
Information Officer; Kevin Miller, IDC managing director, Pacific 
region; Kevin Noonan, Head of consulting, Intermedium; Ian Birks, 
Chief executive officer, Australian Information Industry Association; 
Brand Hoff, Founder of Tower Software and director of NICTA; David 
Bryant, Chair of the Canberra branch of the Australian Computer 
Society and Alex Zelinsky Director, CSIRO ICT Centre; Richard Harris, 
Vice-president research, Gartner Asia-Pacific; and Matthew Purcell, 
The Silicon Kid. But you will have to read the paper for their 
predictions and for the full version of mine.

ps: The idea of ICT people doing carbon audits may sound far fetched, 
but I went through the Government's consultation papers on the scheme 
and it seems they do not necessarily want financial auditors or 
environmental nuts doing it: 
<http://tomw.net.au/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=284>.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University