Gartner's 2015 Strategic Technology Predictions: Trivial, Over Estimated and Interesting

In a previous post titled: Technology Predictions for 2015: Trivial, Over Estimated and Interesting, I analyzed  IDC's 2015 Technological Predictions. This post is dedicated to Gartner's top ten Strategic Technology Trends for 2015. In addition of reading Gartner's prediction hyperlinked above, I read TechRepublic's article: Gartner's top 10 technology trends for 2015: All about the cloud.

Methodological notes
1. Classifying of a prediction as Trivial does not imply that it is not valid and does not imply that it should not be included in analysts' prediction.

2. A prediction could be classified as Over Estimated in different circumstances:

a. The Technology is not so important as the analyst classified it. 
It may vanish in Long Term or its use will be less prevalent than the analyst predict it will or its use will provide less Value than predicted so it will not be so important.  

b. It is so immature that it will take longer time than speculated by the analyst, until it will be Interesting or Trivial. 

3. Do not ignore mainstream mature technologies, which will never appear in Next Year Trends Prediction. For example, read: SOA is Dead again. 

Wearables in Gartner's trends predictions vs. Wearables in IDC's trends predictions
The difference between the predictions is that Technologies appearing in Gartner's trends predictions are described as Strategic. The predictions are about Technologies strategic to Organizations.

IDC's predictions are described as "IDC Worldwide Predictions 2015: Accelerating Innovation on the 3rd Platform". IDC's predictions focus on Innovation. "The 3rd Platform" is a term coined by IDC in 2007, referring to the next generation of software. It is applicable to Enterprise Software as well as to mobile devices and social media. The context is not limited to organizations: Consumers software is included as well.

Gartner's predictions does not have a dedicated prediction for Wearables. They are mentioned in three sections.

The first is titled: "Computing Everywhere" It is about mobile devices including phones and wearables. I assume that Web connectivity of computing everywhere is implied.  

The second is titled: "Cloud/Client Computing". The context is clearly Web related. Wearables are only one type of Cloud Clients devices i.e. Wearables in this context are subclass of Internet of Things.

The third is titled: "Advanced Pervasive and Invisible Analytics". 
It is about analyzing a large amount of data from Embedded systems such as Internet of Things (IOT), social media and wearable devices.

The bottom line is Werables are not Over Estimated in Gartner's predictions as a dedicated trend. It is only included as one of the devices used for enabling other trends.  

TechRepublic point of view
TechRepublic compares Gartner's trends predictions for 2015 to its predictions in 2012, 2013 and 2014. A trend may be a new trend or a trend appearing in 2014 or in 2013 and 2014 or in 2012 and 2013 and 2014. 

It is possible to use this data together with my classification: Trivial, Interesting and Over Estimated.

For example IOT appeared in Gartner's top prediction in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. 

In the Methodological notes section of this post, I discussed two types of Over Estimated trends: those which will mature and those which are not so important. 
It seems that IOT of 2012 and 2013 was Over Estimated. However, it was than immature. In 2014 and 2015 it is Interesting trend. 

Trivial Predictions
I think that the following Gartner's predictions are Trivial:

Cloud/Client Computing
According to Tec Republic it is a Gartner prediction in the last 6 years. The assumptions of no computing power at Client Devices was a wrong assumption in previous Technological Generations, why should it be correct assumption in the age of strong and capable Pavlets? 

Risk-Based Security and self-protection 
Nobody can take care of so many Security threats so Security measures taken should be Risk based: Handle threats that are high risk threats.
Handling low Risk threats could cost more than the damage caused by the risk.

It is not a new approach. Security should be implemented according to this principle. For example, I participated in a consulting project for a large customer based on this assumption 8 years ago. We classified the Security threats according to Risk Severity and Risk occurrence Probability and the customer decided which Risks to take care of and when.

Web Scale IT (second year)
Nothing new. The trend is obvious. The degree of its implementation is less obvious.  

Interesting

Computing everywhere (first year)
"Mobile device proliferation is obvious". What makes this trend interesting is that it is about "a shift of focus from devices to how the user and device interact in different environments and contexts". 

Advanced, Pervasive and Invisible Analytics (first year)
It is not just Analytics and Big Data. it is related to other interesting trends: Context-rich Systems (first year), Computing everywhere and Smart machines (second year).

Smart Machines (second year)
A vision of machines which are context aware and are able to learn. It is closely related to Context-rich Systems and Advanced, Pervasive and Invisible Analytics

Interesting or Over Estimated

3D Printing (second year)
It looks like 3D Printing technology will be important in the future. I am not sure that in 2015 it will be matured enough to be labeled as Interesting and not as Over Estimated. 

Over Estimated
Software-defined applications and infrastructure (second year)
It is very ambitious: "Agile Programming of everything from applications to basic infrastructure is essential to enable organizations to deliver the flexibility required to make the digital business work". The vision of controlling every infrastructure  by software, instead of a mix of Software, Microcode and Hardware, is far from being realized in 2015.
Will it be a reality in 3 years or 4 years? in my opinion probably not.