There are a few obvious trends in the way we will be delivering new information that is a result of better integration strategies. For example, we are seeing more applications like BAM, OBIEE, and data from Oracle E-Business Suite being delivered through mobile devices and web browsers. This type of trend will only continue as salespeople continue to adopt mobile platforms (IE, Tablets) and employees that traditionally work at the office work from home or even at a coffee shop.
New releases of the Java platform combined with better computing power on devices is allowing for a return to fatter clients. We feel that there will be a growing trend in this area with the deployment of Java ME and Java FX. However, there are some bigger trends emerging today that may have integration at the core.
When we think about emerging technology and trends, we think about this in terms of disruptive technology. Disruptive technologies are those things that change the face of competition, buyer patterns or open up totally new industries. Consider Verizon. It was not that many years ago that Verizon provided mostly hardline phone systems. Undoubtedly, their management was building a strategy on how to lower costs and improve pricing schemes to attract more long distance customers. Today cloud computing and mobile platforms have become a genuine game changer for Verizon. Now they have added the Apple iPhone and have purchased TerraData, a cloud computing platform.
So, when we look to the future of technology and potential disruptions, we have to think about how emerging technologies are going to change the face of business. The need for realtime data integration and analysis is a critical factor for a company's success. Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle recently published a paper called Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On. Look at the following quote, from their 2009 report:
Real time is not limited to social media or mobile. Much as Google realized that a link is a vote, Wal-Mart realized that a customer purchasing an item is a vote, and the cash register is a sensor counting that vote. Real-time feedback loops drive inventory. Wal-Mart may not be a Web 2.0 company, but they are without doubt a Web Squared company: one whose operations are so infused with IT, so innately driven by data from their customers, that it provides them immense competitive advantage. One of the great Web Squared opportunities is providing this kind of real-time intelligence to smaller retailers without monolithic supply chains.
The concept of real-time intelligence will be taken to an entirely new level. As O'Reilly and Battelle point out, there will be a merging of traditional transaction data points along with social intelligence taken from different sensor points, like swarming twitter posts and photos. We will be able to merge pictures of reality based on analyses brought about from the community. We will be looking at a larger issue of data integration as we take in more than just multiple RDMS engines, but also ASCII twitter feeds and JPEG pixel images. This notion is considered the movement of the collective mind. The world continues to add sensors. As this becomes more prevalent we will be able to extract new ways to add value. Again from the O'Reilly paper, it has been discovered with the introduction of the smart meter, that each device connected emits a unique energy signature, down to the model and make of the appliance or home device. Information integration will be a key enabler here to unlock limitless possibilities.