Research firm Gartner, recently released a report listing the "Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010" as part of its well known Gartner Symposium which concluded recently at Florida. At the cost of sounding immodest, even without the elaborate information, methodology and experience that Gartner analysts have, I could have gotten many of the candidates in the list on the basis of gut feel. And i think many of the readers would be able to as well. So the technologies are:-

1. Cloud Computing. SaaS services delivered through the web rather than residing on the servers of the company.
2. Advanced Analytics. Optimization and simulation using analytical tools and models to maximize business process.
3. Client Computing. Virtualization is bringing new ways of packaging client computing applications and capabilities. As a result, the choice of a particular PC hardware platform, and eventually the OS platform, becomes less critical. Enterprises should proactively build a five to eight year strategic client computing roadmap outlining an approach to device standards, ownership and support; operating system and application selection, deployment and update; and management and security plans to manage diversity.
4. IT for Green. Environ friendly IT initiatives.
5. Reshaping the Data Center. A pod-based approach to data center construction and expansion. 
6. Social Computing. Enterprises must focus both on use of social software and social media in the enterprise and participation and integration with externally facing enterprise-sponsored and public communities. 
7. Security.  Monitoring activities and identifying patterns rather than a "perimeter based" security strategy.
8. Flash Memory. 
9. Virtualization for Availability. The movement of a running virtual machine (VM), while its operating system and other software continue to execute as if they remained on the original physical server. 
10. Mobile Applications. 

One technology I would have expected to be on the list but is not, is online collaboration software.

How many did you get right? 

There is a lot of talk going around about virtual teams, distributed teams, global teams; and indeed, it makes sense because increasingly these terms describe the new realities of working. But at the same time, people in the IT industry may be lead to believe that lingo that they use without a second thought, is equally understandable to those outside the IT industry. This is often not true, as "web 2.0", "enteprise 2.0", saas, virtualization, or even "virtual teams" may not mean much to many business owners. Ironically, these are the very people this technology is supposed to benefit.

In the spirit of educating small businesses, HyperOffice has recently created a video exhibiting what day to day working in a virtual team consists of, stripped of all high level talk. Titled "another day in a virtual team" you can check out the video below.

Cisco recently conducted a study segmenting online collaboration users. This is the first study of this nature. Their objective was to understand how workers choose to collaborate, which tools they use, and how they believe those tools positively affect productivity, innovation, and cost savings.

This study comes against the backdrop of wide adoption of online collaboration software and other collaboration technologies like web conferencing, wikis, blogs by both small and large organizations.

The survey studied 800 people in U.S. medium-sized and enterprise organizations who qualified on the following counts - spend at least 20 % of their time at work using a network-connected computer; use a mobile device; and participated in two collaborative activities within the past month. 

Companies can use the results of this study to improve adoption of and maximize ROI on online collaboration tools.  

The study resulted in four segments, which are self explanatory -  Collaboration Enthusiasts, Comfortable Collaborators, Reluctant Collaborators, and Collaboration Laggards. 

Other learnings are as follows:- 

Employee Attitudes - Employees regard collaboration as influencing success: found critical or important by the vast majority of respondents, productivity is the biggest perceived benefit: valued more than innovation in all segments 

Usefulness of Collaboration - Collaboration is useful in organizations of all sizes: and equally successful 

Organizational Culture - Recognize that attitudes and organizational culture regarding collaboration are as important as collaboration tools.

Planned Roll out - Begin by introducing collaboration tools to people and groups meeting the characteristics of Enthusiasts and Comfortable Collaborators. These people tend to be managers or supervisors, have held their job position for 3 to 10 years, and are already using Web 2.0 tools at home.

Executive Involvement - Encourage executives to model the desired collaboration practices.

Reward Collaboration - Reward collaboration by including it in performance reviews, offering rewards for successful outcomes, or both.

Formal Processes - Implement formal collaboration processes. Provide the tools, IT support, and training needed to foster increased collaboration.

The "online productivity" segment is really hotting up. Google recently launched its "go Google" advertising campaign, promoting Google Apps, it's online productivity software, specifically positioning it against Microsoft products. In this campaign, which is being seen as possibility its biggest offensive against Microsoft yet, Google will set up 4 giant billboards at prime locations, apart from using traditional online and offline media.

On the other hand, Microsoft has also gone into overgear to promote Microsoft BPOS, its parallel product. Microsoft's recent launch of BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) was its aknowledgment of the growing clout of the SaaS based productivity segment. In a move which had the possibility of cannibalizing its traditionally popular cash cows - MS Exchange, MS SharePoint etc - Microsoft launched the online version of these software, loosely integrated into the BPOS.

The reason for this is the undeniability of the benefits of the SaaS approach - lower costs, no hardware, universal access - and a general shift in business attitudes towards user oriented online solutions, rather than IT department oriented on-premise solutions. Microsoft sees BPOS as a product of the future, and has been agressively trying to push it into the market with the help of its massive partner network.

The hallmark of these "online productivity" solutions is that they are web based, and integrate all the essential productivity tools every organization needs - messaging (email, mobile and web mail, shared contacts/calendars), collaboration (document management, intranet/extranet workspaces, project management, forums, wikis) and web conferencing.

Apart from these two players, there are other smaller players offering solutions in this segment, but specifially oriented towards small businesses. HyperOffice is one such player, which have been offering the HyperOffice Collaboration Suite to SMBs since 1998.

I came across an interesting article on Intranet Journal which I would like to share with our readers. These are simple steps, that can make for a vastly more successful intranet strategy. Because of the simplicity, small business owners will especially find these steps very useful. As the article rightfully points put, the overall measure of intranet success is to answer a simple question - Do most, if not all, of your employees, rely on the intranet every single working day? In other words, do they look upon it as the preferred destination for finding corporate information, and collaborate with colleagues.

1) Buy Don't Build - Ready made intranet software bring a lot more functionality and save you a great deal of hassle associated with custom built intranets. Although software like SharePoint may be more suitable for large enterprises, online intranet software like HyperOffice is more suitable for smaller companies because of the out of the box functionality, and simplicity of setup. 

2) Don't Manage by Committee - Designate a core group which will oversee the intranet through its evolution. Invite input from all department, but leave the decision making to this core group. I would modify this a little from a small business perspective. Although the overall Intranet evolution should be overseen by a core intranet administration team (with the simplicity of online intranet software, it could be a single person), individual departments should have as much room as possible to manage their own intranet workspaces, according to their own requirements. Out of the box ntranet software allow departments to appoint a non expert to administer the department intranet workspace.

3) Include the Intranet in Everyones Start Up - Whenever employees log in to their computers every morning, the first thing they should seeis the intranet. Imminently practical tip! This makes for greater intranet adoption as employees start depending on the intranet to get the latest corporate news, notifications about events, tasks assigned to them etc.

4) Create Useful Categories - Make it easy for everyone to find the information they access most often - phone directory (with photos), company forms, help desk how-to's, press clippings, commonly used web links, training courses etc.

5) Let Everyone Publish Content - This is the heart of an intranet's success! In this era of user generated content and end user control, the intranet will create maximum benefit when everyone can easily publish information on the intranet and offer their knowledge, experience and insights. 

6) Restrict Global Emailing - A very interesting tip. According to the article, there should be restrictions on sending out global emails. At maximum, employees should be able to send out global emails at the departmental level. This will ensure that employees start depending less and less on email for communications, and turn to the intranet, which is a vastly more efficient medium to collaborate.