IDC - Desperately Seeking Differentiation

I got a chance to attend an IDC event last week where they shared their predictions for the Software market and discussed how companies can establish differentiation in 2011 and beyond.

Key themes:

1. Cloud/Near-Cloud - Differentiation by delivery model. [Not surprising. This is a well establish trend now.]
2. Mobile apps/Platform - Differentiation by Platform. [This is a significant trend and one whose impact will be felt for a number of years as a lot of applications will be re-built for the mobile platform. And not necessarily by the original owners. This will be very disruptive.]
3. Social Business - Differentiation by business process. [This is very interesting one as long as you are willing to open your mind to ideas from other people. Very disruptive internally, because you cannot control what/when/why conversations are happening - good or bad. So for paranoid people - this isn't good. But for open, progressive orgaizations, this can be very productive.]
4. Analytics/Big Data - Differentiation by Content/Information. [This is a logical progression. With content overload a well established issue, context-sensitive information packaged appropriately will definitely be well received by employees - especially senior executives.]

We'll share our perspectives in coming weeks and in the meantime would love to hear your predictions for 2011-2014.