Cloud, social, mobile and information are the new ‘Nexus of Forces’ with cloud at the apparent epicentre
The convergence of four IT forces – cloud, social, mobile and information – has formed what analyst house Gartner has described as a new “Nexus of Forces” which will become the paradigm for the future of IT.
The research firm predicts that while the four ‘forces’ are currently disruptive as they are, combined they will tear up old enterprise IT models.
Cloud computing, according to Gartner, provides the “glue” for all the forces, thus being the pivot for everything around it.
“Without cloud computing, social interactions would have no place to happen at scale, mobile access would fail to be able to connect to a wide variety of data and functions, and information still would be stuck inside internal systems,” Gartner notes.
An important point to note is how the cloud has changed the paradigm. Gartner notes that previously users’ went to the workplace for the most efficient and suave computing system. Now there’s a complete role reversal.
Evidence of the cloud weaving into the other forces is abundant in the social sphere.
Its importance cannot be underestimated: “consumer vendors have been quick to see the influence of friends sharing recommendations on what to buy”, the report states.
Yet according to Gartner social is dependent on the cloud for its scalability and accessibility and as a result social drives the other forces along with it.
Perhaps understandably, the cloud is considered vitally important in the mobile arena, in particular noticing the retail industry and the prevalent trend for ‘ROBO’ (research online, buy offline) shopping and the proliferation of mobile payments and wallets in the financial sector.
“The information gathered in this immersive world will have tremendous value and, ultimately, the lasting relationship will be between a user and a cloud-based ecosystem,” the report summarised.
With regard to information social, mobile and cloud helps make information practically ubiquitous – accessible, shareable and consumable with everyone.
“The combination of pervasive mobility, near-ubiquitous connectivity, industrial compute services and information access decreases the gap between idea and action,” said Chris Howard, Gartner managing vice president.
He added: “Organisations that ignore the Nexus of Forces will be displaced by those that can move into the opportunity space more quickly”.
Do you agree about how vital cloud is for other IT operations such as the social and mobile sphere?
