Ten Technology Trends for 2007

I read this article in Developeriq and found it interisting to share.In this article they take a look at the biggest developer technology predictions for 2007. These are trends that they feel will most likely lead to the way we develop software in the New Year. Read on?.

>> Ruby on Rails and Django will move mainstream
The dynamic language pack is hot! And they are moving mainstream very fast. PHP is already there. But it is not yet recommended for cutting edge stuff. Ruby is the hottest programming language around. Every developer who wants to make name for himself, is learning Ruby or at least following the language. There are more than thirty Ruby books being written or is already hit the bookstores.

Last time a language gained mind share so fast was a decade back when Java was launched. And this time around Sun is already doing their share, by pushing JRuby.

But not everyone is going Ruby way. Django, a little know Python framework is catching up and is regarded better of the two for 90% of web applications. There are already a few thousand web sites including your own Developeriq.com running Django.

The next year will see serious application development on both Ruby and Django. Already Google has one project ported on Django which may go live in 2007. This will mean that Django will slowly get recognition.

>> Flex -Ajax tango
The Ajax hype reached a zenith in mid 2006. Everyone was talking Ajax, whether they had a reason to use it. Or for that matter they know how to use it! However the hype will now be replaced with one brewing on Flex. It is just that open source community has not yet got into the Flex mode yet, but it is slowly happening.

Problem with Ajax is that it has peaked too early. There are some nice applications about but at the end of the day it's a Web page with some very fancy JavaScript. And there are too many toolkits around. Moreover, JavaScript is not yet standardized.

However the very fact that it is built on the very fabric that drives Internet, is a reason enough for Ajax to succeed. At the client side you need not install anything new.

Flex SDK though free is not Open Source. Many Open Source programmers do not like this fact. However, the vst majority who likes to get the work done their way, will look at Flex if it makes sense to them. And a huge per cent of web developers are currently moving to Mac or Linux, away from Windows, because of the advantages offered by these platforms - sleekness and freedom.

>> The impact of Java going Open Source will be low
There are (or were) two bipolar opinions about Java going open source. The positive one was that lots of Open Source developers will embrace Java. The negative point was Java losing its sheen and the large enterprises getting worried about Java being un-standardized.

Both are unlikely to happen. The number of Open Source developers launching Java projects during 2007 is likely to be low. At the same time, the enterprise customers will back Java to the hilt and continue investing in Java applications.

>> Internet Explorer 7 will be hot (i feel it will not bcoz Firefox Rocks !!)
The Internet Explorer 7.0 is definitely the best of the lot that Microsoft has shipped or will ship in the coming months. It might have a few bugs, but the product is robust and will wean away many users from going for FireFox. The adoption curve will be faster than previous versions of Internet Explorer.

>> Vista sales will be slow in the first half
As we write this Microsoft is gearing to release Vista worldwide. Unlike the super success of some of the previous platforms, Vista adoption curve will be slower in the first few months.

There is too much of a negative hype surrounding Vista that many large users will be putting off migration plans till they are absolutely sure that everything is OK with it. The bad press which Microsoft is receiving is not helping the cause.

However, the Microsoft marketing machine will win this war, and you will see slow but steady migration and adoption towards end of the year.

>> SOA hype will reduce
We are almost six years into SOA. The hype is died down and reality is stark naked. SOA implementation will be more RESTful. Meanwhile companies will look at some of the ideas from web 2.0 space and use that for implementing SOA projects.

>> Enterprise will look at hosted applications seriously
The ASP model will be back, but in new avatar. Enterprises will look at ASP model for hosting applications. They might not give it out to a third party unless it is a recognized player. But they might do so themselves. . The success of AJAX drives traditional software back to the drawing boards. With the ability to finally provide dynamic rich content and applications over the Web, traditional software vendors will find that they need new products to play in this new world. Indeed, as Google Mail is giving Microsoft fits, so will other more innovative Web-delivered applications leveraging rich client technology such as AJAX. Entire interfaces will have to be rewritten to support AJAX, and end users will demand that we move away from traditional pump-and-pull HTTP programming.

>> More Open Source products on the way
Open Source Everywhere - More and more companies will open source legacy products and launch new ones under open source licenses. Database vendor Ingres is going to set the standard that other more conservative infrastructure vendors will follow. Look for new open source initiatives from major infrastructure vendors like BMC, VMware, and even Microsoft.

>> Notebooks sales will cross 35% mark
PC buyers are buying more notebooks every quarter and sometime in 2007 the number of shipping notebooks will match the number of desktop PCs or come very close at least in North America and Europe. Forresterr predicts the numbers to be on a 35:65 ratio and we tend to agree with that observation.

>> AJAX enabled IDEs will exist
Soon you will have hosted IDEs build on Ajax. And it might be a lot cheaper for companies to host such IDEs on a few servers, rather than loading it up heavily on clients.A good start is www.devsquare.com or www.code4jobs.com.

>> Server Virtualization will happen sooner than later
Server virtualization is just getting started, and will really make itself known in the coming year. Once we start seeing the quad core CPU architectures as a part of standard infrastructure, it really starts making a lot of sense to start deploying and managing servers and applications as virtual entities rather than specific pieces of hardware. This helps manage the cost and pain of software configuration management, take advantage of being able to process many tasks simultaneously because of hardware support, as well as allows legacy hardware to be retired in favor of applications running on virtual servers.

>> Grid Computing will be a reality
Container-based hosting is the new kid on the block, and will also start making its presence known in the upcoming year. Commonly labeled as "grid" hosting (which is a technical misnomer if you understand distributed computing), it essentially claims to be an infinitely scalable hosting platform. This technology still seems to be half-baked at the moment, but you could have said the same thing about Linux ten years ago.

>> Linux explorations will be high
People who normally wouldn't use Linux start to explore it and even replace Windows with it permanently. With Vista, Microsoft seems to be moving to a model in which the Windows operating system is a method to police users with DRM and other nonsense rather than provide developers with a good platform on which to use hardware, which is what operating systems are really supposed to be. A lot more consumers who haven't noticed this happening in the past will stand up and notice this year.

>> Better UIs will be in store
Declarative user interfaces will enable rich user experiences that can be easily modified or extended with simple mechanisms like XSLT. Familiar business applications like Office provide the user interface to back-end line-of-business systems. The line between AJAX-based UIs and rich desktop UIs will blur, enabling users to enjoy both connected and occasionally-connected experiences. Tools and guidance will make building, testing and deploying these composite UI experiences much easier.

>> BPM will get web enabled
BPM is about improving performance by optimizing key processes. Web 2.0 is about capturing the wisdom of crowds (or as O'Reilly puts it, the architecture of participation). The convergence of BPM and Web 2.0 enables collaborative development and tagging of sub-processes, establishing a "process folksonomy" where the best processes can evolve organically. Collaboration can occur over simple but highly scalable pub/sub mechanisms (like Atom or SSE). Lightweight tools will enable users to model or reuse sub-processes using a broad set of metadata. While this is an exciting opportunity, there are several technical and non-technical issues that must be addressed before this convergence becomes a reality.

>> Good developers will still be in demand
Skilled programmers and extremely skilled programmers will not come in cheaply and will continue to be `hard to find'. There may be an excess of unskilled labour. But skilled programmers will still be hard to find.

>> Outsourcing will continue to grow
Companies will continue to outsource software development and IT Services and there seems to be no sign of it stopping. See Gartner's prediction for more details.

Gartner, Inc. released 10 key predictions that showcase the trends and events that will change the nature of business and IT in 2007 and beyond.

These predictions are for general technology areas rather than specific to industries or roles within an organization. The predictions are intended to compel high-tech companies and IT professionals within enterprises to action and position themselves to take advantage of the coming changes, and not be damaged by them.


Through 2009, market share for the top 10 IT outsourcers will decline to 40.0% (from 43.5% now), equaling a revenue shift of $5.4 billion. As market share declines, some key outsourcing vendors will cease to exist in their current named form. The reduced number of large contracts, increased amount of competition and reduction in contract sizes have placed great pressure on outsourcers, which will have to "sink or swim" based on support for selective outsourcing and disciplined multisourcing competencies.

Only one Asia/Pacific-based service provider will make the global top 20 through 2010. The number of global players in consulting that come from Asia is relatively small. This will limit the ability of the Asian juggernaut to grow revenue streams rapidly and become global leaders.

Blogging and community contributors will peak in the first half of 2007. Given the trend in the average life span of a blogger and the current growth rate of blogs, there are already more than 200 million ex-bloggers. Consequently, the peak number of bloggers will be around 100 million at some point in the first half of 2007.

By 2009, corporate social responsibility (CSR) will be a higher board- and executive-level priority than regulatory compliance. Regulation has become a key issue for government and the corporate world, with the aim of ensuring more-responsible behavior. However, the need for companies to be socially responsible to their employees, customers and shareholders is growing as well. The future will see corporate boards and executives make this social dynamic a more-critical priority.

By the end of 2007, 75% of enterprises will be infected with undetected, financially motivated, targeted malware that evaded their traditional perimeter and host defenses. The threat environment is changing \u2014 financially motivated, targeted attacks are increasing, and automated malware-generation kits allow simple creation of thousands of variants quickly \u2014 but our security processes and technologies haven't kept up.

Vistawill be the last major release of Microsoft Windows. The next generation of operating environments will be more modular and will be updated incrementally. The era of monolithic deployments of software releases is nearing an end. Microsoft will be a visible player in this movement, and the result will be more-flexible updates to Windows and a new focus on quality overall.

By 2010, the average total cost of ownership (TCO) of new PCs will fall by 50%. The growing importance and focus on manageability, automation and reliability will provide a welcome means of differentiating PCs in a market that is increasingly commoditized. Many of the manageability and support tools will be broadly available across multiple vendors. However, vendors that can leverage these tools further and can graduate from claims of "goodness" to concrete examples of cost savings will have a market advantage.

By 2010, 60% of the worldwide cellular population will be "trackable" via an emerging "follow-me Internet." Local regulations have arisen to protect users' privacy, but growing demands for national safety and civil protection are relaxing some of the initial privacy limitations. Marketing incentives will also push users to forgo privacy concerns, and many other scenarios will enable outsiders to track their users.

Through 2011, enterprises will waste $100 billion buying the wrong networking technologies and services. Enterprises are missing out on opportunities to build a network that would put them at a competitive advantage. Instead, they follow outdated design practices and collectively will waste at least $100 billion in the next five years.

By 2008, nearly 50% of data centers worldwide will lack the necessary power and cooling capacity to support high-density equipment. With higher densities of processors proliferating, problems in this area continue to grow. Although the power and cooling challenge of high-density computer equipment will persist in the short term, a convergence of innovative technologies will begin to mitigate the problem by 2010.