eXo and the “Gartner’s top 10 technologies to watch over the next three years.”

Gartner Analysts delivered their list of the “Top 10 Strategic Technology Areas” at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2008 in Orlando, that IT companies should watch over the next three years.

eXo Platform is standing as an innovator in many of these areas.

Analysts define strategic technologies as :

“A strategic technology is one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt. Companies should factor these technologies into their strategic planning process by asking key questions and making deliberate decisions about them during the next two years. Sometimes the decision will be to do nothing with a particular technology. In other cases it will be to continue investing in the technology at the current rate. In still other cases the decision may be to test/pilot or more aggressively adopt/deploy the technology.”

Gartner’s Top 10 technologies :

Gartner Top 10 technologies

eXo Platform is already standing on some of these areas and is developing others :

1. Virtualization

Gartner: “Much of the current buzz is focused on server virtualization, but virtualization in storage and client devices is also moving rapidly. Hosted virtual images deliver a near-identical result to blade-based PCs. But, instead of the motherboard function being located in the data center as hardware, it is located there as a virtual machine bubble. However, despite ambitious deployment plans from many organizations, deployments of hosted virtual desktop capabilities will be adopted by fewer than 40 percent of target users by 2010.”

eXo Platform: During last years, eXo Platform developed a product called eXo WebOS wich is a virtualized desktop. This user oriented solution reproduce the environment of classic operating systems, where users can easily find their useful applications and organize their work space through desktop windows that can be maximized or minimized. Moreover, the JCR enables the storage virtualization.

2. Cloud Computing

Gartner: “Cloud computing is a style of computing that characterizes a model in which providers deliver a variety of IT-enabled capabilities to consumers. The key characteristics of cloud computing are 1) delivery of capabilities “as a service,” 2) delivery of services in a highly scalable and elastic fashion, 3) using Internet technologies and techniques to develop and deliver the services, and 4) designing for delivery to external customers. As certain IT functions are industrializing and becoming less customized, there are more possibilities for larger organizations to benefit from cloud computing.”

eXo Platform: The company is developping SAAS solutions of its products via amazon EC2 servers. This solution benefits to the users in the way that they pay as they use it. For eXo, it reduces the time to market.

4. Web-Oriented Architectures

Gartner: “The Internet is arguably the best example of an agile, interoperable and scalable service-oriented environment in existence. This level of flexibility is achieved because of key design principles inherent in the Internet/Web approach, as well as the emergence of Web-centric technologies and standards that promote these principles. The use of Web-centric models to build global-class solutions cannot address the full breadth of enterprise computing needs. However, Gartner expects that continued evolution of the Web-centric approach will enable its use in an ever-broadening set of enterprise solutions during the next five years.”

eXo Platform: eXo products are built on top of Web-Oriented Architectures and are developed around our REST framework and the gadgets API. Gadgets that can be used inside or outside eXo products.

5. Enterprise Mashups

Gartner: “Enterprises are now investigating taking mashups from cool Web hobby to enterprise-class systems to augment their models for delivering and managing applications. Through 2010, the enterprise mashup product environment will experience significant flux and consolidation, and application architects and IT leaders should investigate this growing space for the significant and transformational potential it may offer their enterprises.”

eXo Platform: eXo products enable the users to build mashups on their personnal pages and thus to display information from different sources. This improve knowledge exchanges inside the company. Another idea implemented on eXo products is the applications mashup enabling companies to display different applications on a same page (Google gadgets for exemple).

7. Social Software and Social Networking

Gartner: “Social software includes a broad range of technologies, such as social networking, social collaboration, social media and social validation. Organizations should consider adding a social dimension to a conventional Web site or application and should adopt a social platform sooner, rather than later, because the greatest risk lies in failure to engage and thereby, being left mute in a dialogue where your voice must be heard.”

eXo Platform: All eXo products have a strong collaborative dimension because we think that the future of companies lies in the Web 2.0 practices. Following this idea, we engaged ressources to develop a new product: eXo Social, which brings social networking inside the companies, pushing the traditional “walls” of the company to its customers and partners. More about eXo Social is coming soon ! Very soon !

As you can see, eXo Platform is standing in major technology areas defined by a reknowned IT consultant group : Gartner.

For more information about Gartner, visit their website.

For more information about eXo Platform and our products, visit our website.

Brahim Jaouane

I am a Digital Marketing specialist specialized in SEO at eXo Platform. Passionate about new technologies and Digital Marketing. With 10 years' experience, I support companies in their digital communication strategies and implement the tools necessary for their success. My approach combines the use of different traffic acquisition levers and an optimization of the user experience to convert visitors into customers. After various digital experiences in communication agencies as well as in B2B company, I have a wide range of skills and I am able to manage the digital marketing strategy of small and medium-sized companies.