PREDICTIONS are hard, especially about the future, goes the adage. They may be hardest in digital technology, where the next big thing can come out of nowhere. Even so, market-research firms, big and small, stick their necks out at the end of each year on where the technology industry is headed. Inevitably, there is a great deal of inscrutable geekspeak in their reports. But with a bit of translation they add up to a useful picture of the prospects for the IT industry, and the businesses that buy its products and services.
IDC, one of the biggest such research firms, was early in identifying the shift to what it calls the “third platform”. The first platform for IT was the mainframe computer—a big, centralised processor with lots of dumb terminals connected to it.
