GRANDVILLE ? Cloud computing, agile methodology, tablet computers, mobile applications, and IT security are among the top technology trends for 2012, says Dawn Simpson, VP of Market Development for Trivalent, an IT services and data management company.

Trivalent compiled its top ten technology trends list from a variety of sources including Forrester Research, Gartner, JP Morgan Analyst Group, and ABI Research.

Topping the list is Cloud Computing. Forrester Research predicts the global cloud computing market will reach $241 billion in 2020, a six-fold increase from $40.7 billion in 2010.

?We see cloud computing growing very rapidly in pockets,? Simpson says. ?One of the things holding it back is the integration of the user experience. We believe there will be a lot of consolidation in the next 10 years. It is possible for two or three major players to end up with the lion?s share of the market. You might see smaller players, boutique players like Trivalent, becoming the niche application cloud for smaller business. Or the gateway to the cloud. Our goal as integrators should be to create one consolidated cloud interface for customers. The challenge is to make that integration a reality.?

Agile methodology ? Gartner predicts by the end of 2012, agile development methods will be utilized by 80 percent of all software development projects.

?We see agile methodology as more pervasive in app development ,? Simpson says. ?We?re even providing some agile project implementations. The old way is, say, we have an IT budget of $50,000. We decide we?re going to spend $20,000 here, $15,000 there. Traditionally we end up spending all those funds on highly tasked, rigid projects. Agile forces you to look at all the projects for the year, prioritize those projects, and then be agile enough to shift the resources as priorities shift. Development and projects are based on priorities and progress, not financials.?

Tablet Computers ? JP Morgan Analyst Group predicts the tablet computer market will grow to $35 billion by the end of 2012.

?This is a consumer cross over driving business change,? says Simpson. ?The iPad was developed for the consumer market. Now it is becoming ubiquitous for business.. With the mainstreaming of virtualization and virtual desktops we can better leverage these thin technologies for business purposes…?

Mobile Applications ? Gartner predicts global mobile application store revenues will reach $15 billion this year and grow to an astounding $58 billion by 2014.

?This is another consumer crossover,? says Simpson. ?Mobile applications have been developed primarily for consumers. With apps like PDA.net, you really are looking at true anywhere, anytime computing. By becoming your own WiFi hot spot, you can just pull to the side of the road, connect your mobile device and viola instant office. It is a great market for emerging developers.?

IT Security ? Gartner predicts the global IT Security market will reach $16.5 billion in 2011.

?Security is such a large topic,? Simpson says. ?It?s so broad, so wide. Global IT Security is not just firewalls and anti-virus software.. Companies need intrusion detection and protection that is monitoring threats at the global level and preventing those threats from even reaching their firewalls. You don?t have to be a public company to get into hot water with security and compliance. Some companies we deal with are small, but have global footprints.?

Business Intelligence & Analytics ? Gartner predicts the worldwide market for Business Intelligence (BI) software is expected to grow 9.7 percent to reach US$10.8 billion in 2011.

?This is not a new trend,? she says. ?It?s seen slow steady growth. The hardest part with BI is finding the talent to manipulate the information the software is able to pull. We see clients that have needs for analytics, but the tricky part is getting that info into a report that is meaningful to leverage that info for the benefit of their businesses.?

IT Automation ? Gartner predicts by 2015 tools and automation will eliminate 25 percent of labor hours associated with IT services.

?This is probably a pretty accurate depiction,? Simpson says. ?We have implemented many tools to strip out the labor costs in our own business. A simple example is automating the backup process. Those behind the bell curve are still doing manual tape backup. IT automation eliminates these tasks. Inherent in cloud services are automated backup, monitoring, recovery and archiving. As we trend toward cloud, these automations are simply part of the package…?

Business Process Management ? Gartner predicts Business Process Management (BPM) license, services, and maintenance revenues to approach $6.3 billion in 2011.

?This trend leverages technology to streamline business – ERP applications for example. We?re looking at ways to integrate technology to manage different pieces of the business using a more integrated approach. Taking a ?the whole is greater than the pieces? approach and looking at what technologies are in place for each function, then surveying opportunities for functional integration by streamlining applications. . How do we make this more streamlined, more agile??

Social Communication & Collaboration ? Gartner predicts Enterprise 2.0 to become a $4.6 billion industry by 2013.

?Another consumer cross over. Businesses see the value in these same collaboration tools. Tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. Social networking is replacing the old fashioned ?networking? events to meet business professionals to make connections. This can now be done in the cloud with greater reach.

Unified Communication ? ABI Research predicts the Unified communications market to approach $4.2 billion by 2014.

?This one is a bit of a consumer cross over, unifying voice, data, text, social communications and collaboration. For example, I have picture and contact details on my Android phone through my Facebook account. Unified communications is all about enhancing the collaboration and communication in a common context to improve business process.?A few honorable mentions from Simpson are ?WiMax, Virtual Desktops and Disaster recovery. . This year we have seen an upsurge in interest in the disaster recovery market, particularly in small business. Businesses of all sizes realize they need it more than ever. Cloud computing lends itself to the need. We?ve already seen several outages in the cloud. Google had two this year. If you hang your hat in the cloud, you need a backup. ?

For more information, click on TrivalentGroup.Com

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