Last updated on 1 September 2021
Gartner has just published its annual hype cycle for emerging technologies. Compare it with the 2020 edition and you’ll see there is minimal overlap.
So what’s happened to all last year’s emerging technologies? Have they matured, stalled or disappeared completely. None of these, to any great extent. As Gartner explains, the lack of overlap is largely a testament to the pace of technological innovation.
“The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is not a typical Gartner Hype Cycle. It draws from an extremely broad spectrum of topics, and we intend it to be dynamic. It features many technologies for only a year or two, after which it doesn’t track them to make room for other important technologies. Most technologies that we remove from this Hype Cycle continue to be tracked on other Hype Cycles. … We’ve removed most of the technologies that appeared in the 2020 version of this Hype Cycle, including:…”
And it goes on to list 25 that have been migrated to other Hype Cycles. One, composable enterprise, has morphed into five others: applications, infrastructure, networks, ERP and D&A, each tracked in a different Hype Cycle.
For each of the 25 technologies in the 2021 Hype Cycle report the 91 page document provides a detailed analysis broken down by: benefit rating, market penetration, maturity, definition, reason for importance, business impact, drivers, obstacles, recommendations for users, sample vendors, and recommended reading of other Gartner documents.
Life cycle of an emerging technology
All the Hype Cycles have the same five stages: innovation trigger, peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment, slope of enlightenment and plateau of productivity. Each technology sits at a specific point on the curve, and each has a further attribute: Gartner’s estimate of the time it will take to reach the plateau of productivity (or whether it will be obsolete before it ever gets there).
So the one thing not easily discernible from all this Hype Cycle information is life cycle information on each technology: where and when it is first added to the hype cycle and its progress across and along the different Hype Cycles over a number of years. To this could be added further information: the scale and value of a technology when it reaches the plateau of productivity.
Even more interesting would be add in other factors that influence a technologies progress: externalities that either boost or hamper its progress and uptake. And of course when it ultimately falls of the Cliff of Obsolescence. Would make for really interesting reading!
PS: Gartner has been producing is Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologiesannually since at least 2007 and some of the early ones are freely accessible. It’s fun to check out some of these and see what Gartner thought then about some of today’s tech. In 2007, for example RFID for items was heading into the Trough of Disillusionment and location aware technologies just heading up the slope of enlightenment.
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