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Yesterday I attended the “Hot Technologies in 2012 Local Briefing” for the financial services industry hosted by Gartner.  The venue was primarily for CIO’s of large financial firms.

They discussed a few interesting trends that I believe are very important for the street.

IT is losing control. 

• IT budgets are being cut or stagnated and being moved outside of the CIO’s control.  According to Gartner, by 2014 25% of the average firms tech budget will be outside of a CIO’s decision.  By 2018 it could be double that.

Mobile will dominate.

• By 2016 there will be 920 million tablets in the market, that’s 1 out of 8 people on the planet.
• By 2014 iOS and Android will have an installed base of more than 50% of operating systems in the world.
• By 2014 only 1 in 4 IT projects will focus on the PC platform.

So where are all of these mobile developers going to come from?  I’m not sure.  Also, where is the IT budget going to come from?  Gartner suggests that the budget will come from outside of IT, perhaps the chief marketing officer and other business groups.

Another question, why is the street continuing to focus on the PC platform and web apps if this is retro technology?

The cloud is huge.

Cloud technology is finally being adopted by the street, forcibly so.  Because of budget constraints on IT departments, many are being forced into the cloud because of the tremendous cost efficiencies.

However, Gartner claims “beware of cloud providers that might not be cloud providers in the future”.  Economies of scale and sinking server/component costs will drive many providers out of this commodity business in the future.

The consumerization of IT.

There is a consistent theme in all of this and it has to do with the continued empowerment of the consumer/employee and the consumerization of IT.

This is a great post from the understatement.  Check out the chart below on the fragmentation of OS’s on Android devices:

This chart represents the manufacturers support of the latest OS for each smartphone device.  And it doesn’t look pretty for Android devices.

So why don’t Android devices get updated? 

According to Michael Degusta, “Obviously a big part of the problem is that Android has to go from Google to the phone manufacturers to the carriers to the devices, whereas iOS just goes from Apple directly to devices.”

“In other words, Apple’s way of getting you to buy a new phone is to make you really happy with your current one, whereas apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one.”

Mary Meeker made some interesting points at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday in San Francisco.  One to note is outlined in the graph below.

Take a look at the acceleration of the iPad versus the iPhone and iPod, shown in shipments per quarter.  Apple currently controls 74% of all tablets sold in the United States, said Tim Cook at a recent Apple Keynote.

I find this hard to believe, but facts are facts.  I like my iPad, but it doesn’t seem as useful as a smartphone.  My iPhone is always with me, my iPad isn’t.  And I can’t replace my desktop with an iPad, I’ve tried. But maybe that’s because of what I do for a living.

Now, checkout this slide on Android acceleration.

When you compare Android and iPhone shipments, the acceleration of the Android platform dwarfs the iPhone.

Here’s her complete presentation.

Xyologic, a startup that searches and indexes through App Store data, recently published some interesting data regarding the App space.  

According to Xyologic projections, by August 2012 there will be an equal number of apps available for the Android as there are for the iPhone, at roughly 680,000 apps available for both platforms.

Also, according to Xyologic, the total app downloads for Android will surpass the iPhone sometime in May 2013, at roughly 84 billion.

All of this makes a lot of sense with Apple’s 3 devices competing against Androids many manufacturers and many devices. 

I wonder if Apple’s free iPhone 3GS will make any impact on these numbers.

There’s a trend going on right now that doesn’t help RIM with their cherished Wall Street clients.

I’m seeing this all over the place.   People are tired of carrying two mobile devices, a corporate Blackberry and a personal Android or iPhone.  Many IT departments on Wall Street are incorporating technology from GOOD to solve this problem.  And saving big $$$ for the company.

If you haven’t heard of GOOD, think of it as a self-contained corporate Outlook for your Smartphone.  It’s a secure e-email / calendar / browser / contact manager /etc app.  All data is encrypted, and if the device is lost the application data can be wiped remotely.

If your company supports GOOD, you typically have the option of disposing of your corporate Blackberry and installing the GOOD app on your Smartphone.  Given the option, everyone I know is doing the latter.

GOOD isn’t the greatest technology, and will most likely become irrelevant with iOS 5.0 (more on that later), but given the option I would rather carry just one device and that would be a Smartphone, not a Blackberry.

This is going to be huge.  Moving your credit cards to your mobile phone means that my real-life wallet will shrink by about 90%.

Google announced a deal today (Wall Street Journal) with MasterCard and Citigroup for it’s Android platform.  Verifone, the manufacturer of most of the retail credit card terminals is also invovled.

The tech used is called Near Field Communication (NFC).  Basically, wave your phone in front of the credit card terminal, and payment can be made.  Google has an advertising angle here, displaying ads to the customer at checkout.

If you think about it, they could easily add coupons, location-based deals, etc.

Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 is also rumored to have an NFC chip installed as well.