Server Predictions for 2010

Although the enterprise Click to learn how AT&T Application Management can help you focus on the growth and profitability of your business. server market has been among the hardest hit by the suffering economy, there is reason to be hopeful as 2009 draws to a close. I'd like to take a moment to share eight predictions of what we can look forward to in 2010 -- trends that have the potential to dramatically change the enterprise in the years to come.

1. The Customer Really Is Always Right

As budgets tightened, C-level executives were forced to make hard decisions to survive, shifting their business models to meet what customers needed. In the year to come, they must remain open to this model. Great innovation is often spurred by client demand -- doing proof of concept prototypes and applying what we've learned, such as IBM's (NYSE: IBM) experience creating Blue Gene.

Working with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, IBM sought to create a complete solution, not simply a new chip or server, but an entirely new architecture designed to simulate physical phenomena of national interest -- such as aging of materials, fires and explosions -- that required computational capability much great than anything available.

These types of partnerships continue to push the envelope in terms of how much data can be stored and how quickly systems can scale, enabling the industry to bring supercomputing power to the masses by adapting these systems for commercial applications such as simulations and modeling, data mining or business intelligence.