Predictions for 2007

This is the season to try and predict and prepare for what the coming year will bring. Here is what I expect ...

On the Consumer Front: 2007 will be the Year of Widgets and Webtops (Web Desktops). Netvibes, PageFlakes, Google Personalized Pages, Live.com (from Microsoft), etc. have all gained traction with early adopters and I expect these to go mainstream. I know several techies who have setup Webtop sites with Widgets (Calendar, e-mail, News, Weather, YouTube) for their friends and family members and received positive feedback. In addition, with the significant increase in the number of smart phones in consumers' hands, I expect specific function mobile widgets (Google Maps, etc.) to gain consumer acceptance in 2007.

On the Enterprise Front: Business users have noticed the speed at which technology is evolving on the consumer front and are wondering why IT is unable to deploy new Enterprise Solutions at a quicker pace. In 2006, Enterprise IT took action and piloted wiki and blogging frameworks, AJAX, mashups and other consumer technologies. I expect wider deployment of these technologies within the Enterprise in 2007. SOA will continue to be implemented in large enterprises to enable software reuse, enhance flexibility and reduce time to market for new solutions.