Twitter set to disappoint

Cloud computing and E-book readers set to gather steam

Gartner has examined the maturity of 1,650 technologies and trends in 79 technology, topic, and industry areas, and these findings have been published in “Gartner’s Hype Cycle Special Report for 2009.” Each Hype Cycle provides a snapshot of key technologies and trends in a specific technology, topic, geographic region, or industry domain.

“Technologies at the Peak of Inflated Expectations during 2009 include cloud computing, e-books (such as from Amazon and Sony) and Internet TV (for example, Hulu), while social software and microblogging sites (such as Twitter) have tipped over the peak and will soon experience disillusionment among enterprise users,” said Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner Fellow, and co-author of the book “Mastering the Hype Cycle” (published by Harvard Business Press).

“Looking at real benefit, rather than the hyped expectations, we see a number of potentially transformational technologies that will hit the mainstream in less than five years, including Web 2.0, cloud computing, Internet TV, virtual worlds and service-oriented architecture (SOA),” Ms. Fenn said.

“Longer term, beyond the five-year horizon, RFID, 3-D printing, context-delivery architectures, mobile robots, and human augmentation will be transformational across a range of industries.”

Additional analysis on some of the technologies and trends at the Peak of Inflated Expectations that will reach the plateau in two to five years include cloud computing and E-book readers.