5 Disruptive Technologies to Watch in 2007

The InformationWeek website has an extensive article covering 5 disruptive technologies that will (according to the article) make its entrance into mainstream applications in 2007:

1. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
“Why now? RFID isn’t new, having been around in one form or another for more than a decade. However, several factors have come together to make it a big deal. First, there are new developments in the integration of supply chain infrastructure with products such as Reva Systems’ Tag Acquisition Processor. This has made it easier to manipulate RFID data directly into inventory, supply chain, and manufacturing systems.”

2. Web Services
“The Web has become a force of nature and a solid applications delivery platform. Whatever you call this latest buzz, Web applications have changed the way we will deploy enterprise software. ”

3. Server Virtualization
““The concept behind virtual servers is simply stated but hard to implement: take a single server, divvy it up into separate “virtual” machines, each with its own memory, virtual hardware and drive images, and other resources. It isn’t new: IBM has been doing this on its mainframes for more than 30 years, and we’ve had blade servers for the past five years. But what is new is that the power of a VM can be delivered to the PC platform, and there is a more compelling argument now that Microsoft and EMC are literally giving away their VM server software, along with pre-configured VMs to make setup even easier.”

4. Advanced Graphics Processing
“Operating systems themselves are using three-dimensional elements as part of their basic tasks, and more applications are making use of 3-D. Microsoft’s Windows Vista is a good example. IT managers need to understand their entire graphics desktop collection and manage the transition to more graphics-able PCs.”

5. Mobile Security
“However, it’s no longer adequate to just authenticate users: today’s IT managers have to worry about infected laptops that can bring down their networks. The trick is delivering a consolidated mobile and end point security solution across the enterprise that will cover multiple desktop operating systems, non-desktop network devices such as Web cameras and print servers, and various switch and router vendors and operating system versions.”

You can read the full article here.