TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Top 10 Business Tech Winners and Losers of 2009

Eric Lundquist | Date: 01-11-10 | Comments

Last year saw its share of both business tech winners, such as the mobile Internet and everything Googlified, and business tech losers, from security to mobile work force apps.

There were many business tech winners and losers in 2009. What follows is the top 10 in each category.

The Winners

1. Mobile Internet. The business world in the palm of your hand. Apple, Google and Cisco are roaring along. Still missing: business apps. Still missing: Microsoft.

2. Sociable business networks. A winner, but not a business winner yet. Twitter is everyone's darling, but it needs business pinstripes to make inroads into a world of security and compliance.

3. BI. Interesting one here. The lack of true business intelligence was one of the great failures of the banking/real estate bubble. Every CIO wants BI, but few can describe BI.

4. Internet video. TV is destined to become one more app on the Internet. The business world still has not fully understood how internet video will change the business world.

5. That big cloud. Leave it to Amazon to blaze the trail here. Why spend your IT $$$ building infrastructure when you can rent a piece of the cloud?

6. Virtualization. At last a real ROI payoff for IT investment. If you are not ready to buy into the cloud, cut your costs through virtualization.

7. Windows 7. Everyone screamed sufficiently loud to make Microsoft notice and deliver a decent OS.

8. Googified everything. Google apps, sites, groups, waves, search, location, operating systems. The ability to build a totally Google-based company is now possible and attractive.

9. Business app developers. The rise of the cloud means app developers can concentrate on software development that businesses want and can afford.

10. Money. The fed stimulus package was good for IT and good for apps such as health care.

The Losers

1. Security. A little better than 2008? I don't think so.

2. Privacy. Forget it.

3. Green. Lost in the financial meltdown, but it may be making a comeback.

4. Tech jobs. Short-term thinking leads to tech job cuts that will come back to haunt the biz world.

5. CIOs. The downturn led to CIOs shifting from investing in the future to cutting costs. Not fun.

6. BI. Why didn't all that tech investment in the financial industry set off warning bells when the world started to collapse?

7. Government tech investment. The year ended with finger pointing over the Christmas underwear bomber and database systems that can't talk to each other.

8. Virtualization. Good and bad. Companies are having a tough time showing the promised payoff. Hint: You need management tools to stop virtual server sprawl.

9. Social nets. Nice. Now everyone in the company is Twittering and Facebooking. Where's the productivity in that?

10. Mobile work force apps. Everyone has a smartphone, but they are all doing e-mail. Companies forget they need to build mobile apps for a mobile work force.