Published on the 28/08/2014 | Written by Beverley Head

Organisations experimenting with internet of things deployments, wearables, cryptocurrencies or big data could be in for a long wait before they bear real fruit. Beverley Head reports…

Gartner’s 2014 hypecycle for emerging technologies has forecast that it will be five to ten years before internet of things deployments, wearables, cryptocurrencies, even big data are universally useful. Right now these are four emerging technologies sliding off Gartner’s famed peak of inflated expectations and hurtling toward the equally notorious trough of disillusionment.

The technology analyst has long used the hypecycle to puncture vendor rhetoric and inject some reality into user expectations of what might be possible with new technologies in the near to mid-term.

So while it may surprise some to see that cloud computing and near field communications are already languishing in this year’s trough of dissillusionment, it is probably a fair assessment of where many enterprises find themselves when comparing their experiences to the high falutin’ promises of some technology vendors. But enterprises should take some comfort from the fact that Gartner has forecast that cloud and NFC will reach the plateau of productivity in most enterprises within two to five years.

Gartner has also indicated that it hopes enterprises will use the hype cycle to determine which technologies could support them as they journey through six stages of the transition to a fully digital business; namely analogue, web, e-business, digital marketing, digital business and finally, autonomous.

So companies which already have a web presence and e-business capability and are moving to digital marketing might start to deploy big data, gamification, augmented reality and cloud computing. Truly digital businesses meanwhile would be exploring smart workspaces, cryptocurrencies, 3D printing, wearables and the internet of things.

Further out – and not for the faint hearted – are the technologies emerging to support autonomous business that are able to “leverage technologies that provide humanlike or human-replacing capabilities. Using autonomous vehicles to move people or products or using cognitive systems to write texts or answer customer questions”.

These include virtual personal assistants, quantum computing, smart robots, autonomous vehicles and brain-computer interfaces – technologies which Gartner, for the most part, believes will take ten years or more to achieve their full potential.