Gartner on yet another convergence

In this post I challenged the Apples and Googles to win at enterprise computing. In this post I challenged the enterprise apps players to take advantage of the "new" Web.

At its Symposium this week,  Gartner had a whole presentation on the coming convergence of enterprise and consumer markets. Here are some of their recommendations (aimed more at their enterprise base)

• Get out of denial. Recognize the reality of consumer IT's effect.

• Don't try to stop it, you will fail. You can control it (and benefit from it) with education,and a realistic and pragmatic approach.

• Make it secure:

  Define risks and policies to address them

  Policies coupled with justification will work

• Learn from:

  Users — don't play cop

  Line-of-business people who work closest to consumers

  Children — if necessary

• Accommodate experimentation — create play zones for IT and users.

• Minimize controls for agility.

• The market rules — take advantage of it.

Look to the consumer market
Outsource
You will get cost savings, but you will get far greater benefits in more unexpected areas, such as employee productivity, creativity and satisfaction.

• This trend is still in its infancy.

and here is their view on the major market vendors in terms of this convergence. Fascinating that they do not have any telecomm vendors on the list - since Verizon and others certainly service both consumer and corporate markets.  Of course by 2012, ebay will with Skype provide most long-distance over VoIP and Google will do the same with Wi-FI?:

Most vendors fall neatly into the enterprise or consumer camps. Those that have experience and understanding of both will have greater opportunities as the IT industry shifts toward consumers during the next 10 years.Companies such as HP and Microsoft have experience in both camps, although with extremely different areasof focus and core competences. Longtime enterprise stalwarts such as IBM, Oracle and SAP have the expected focus and bent toward traditional enterprise. IBM, with its services organization and ability to change, has an opportunity, but would have to make some substantial strategy changes to realize that opportunity.There is no shortage of consumer technology providers. Most of the successful ones have limited influence in enterprise markets. However, by 2012, at least one of the following will win new standing in the enterprisemarket: Sony, Apple, Motorola, Nokia, Thomson, LG or Samsung (0.6 probability). Increasingly, products will be designed more for consumer markets. Enterprises must be able to integrate and adapt these products to solve their specific business needs. Vendors that can provide professional technical integration services will have an opportunity. Those that have experience — not just with traditional enterprise technology, but also with consumer-oriented products — will have an advantage over those that don't.