My Tuesday report from the Gartner Symposium conference (held in humid Orlando) is a bit late. I usually get my blog ready in the evening, but yesterday evening Gartner reserved one of the Disney theme parks and bussed the attendees (about 9000) to the theme park. Ok, I was doubtful if they get us there in time, so I decided that if after a 20 minutes in line I’m not on or near a bus, I’ll skip it. In 20 mins I was on the bus, well on my way to the event. I was wondering about the logistics of moving these many people all at once, but I let it go.
As I mentioned on Monday, this is THE conference for IT Leaders and CIOs. There were lots of sessions on Tuesday; some of the highlights are in lists below.
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The three top strategic technology trends for 2014 according to Gartner include:
1. Mobile Device Diversity and Management
Through 2018, the growing variety of devices,  user preferences and interactions will make “everything everywhere” connectable. The  “bring your own device” (BYOD) programs will be doubling or even tripling due to the size of the mobile workforce.
2.Mobile Apps and Applications
Gartner predicts that through 2014, improved tools will begin to push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream enterprise application development environment. Apps are smaller, and more targeted, while  applications are larger and  more comprehensive. Developers are expected to look for ways to put together apps to create larger applications, similar to Lego blocks.
3. The Internet of EverythingÂ
Gartner predicts that everything will have a chip in it, clothes, appliance and more; eg diapers will have it  to tweet parents that it needs changing. This will result in lots of data, hence the big data issue won’t go away, just get more complex.
Eric Schmidt’s (Executive Chair for Google) most interesting points:
- Chrome is the #1 browser, can do anonymous searches, more secure than anything else, expected no less from the Chair of Google.
- If there would be a data breach at Google, it would be devastating for the company, the culture in the company won’t allow it.
- Majority of work is /will be done on tablets not PCs.
- New architecture should be applications to applications.
- 80 per cent of malware is from China.
- Cloud structure is getting increasingly more secure (than private facilities) as more people are testing it
- Ask employees “tell me something new” to get the innovative culture, something that will matter 10 years from now.
Speakers’ top sound bites:
1. In the digital industrial revolution, there are no “users” any more; they are partners!
2. No single vendor will dominate the handset and tablet market. Windows, iOS and Android are leading.
3. Internet of everything: By 2020 consumer data will be connected from wearable items, everything will be connected to the Internet.
4. Suppliers are/will be affected by digitalization, some will perish, others will survive, a few will thrive!
5. Mobile is the destination platform for all applications.
6. Consumer technology  devices will account for four times as much as business and government purchases.
7. Win 8.1 is solid and polished.
8.Crossover form factors such as Microsoft Surface are the “wild cards.”
9. Dynamic pricing: if you log-on 3 times from the same IP address to a hotel’s home page to look at room prices, the cost will stay high as they track number of log-ins from the same IP address.
10. Infrastructure is everything you’d write below the headline “I care about:”.
Conference app pros and cons
I do like Gartner’s app on my iPhone to build and track my agenda, notes and get automatic updates. It’s one of the best I have seen! What  I don’t like is that Gartner is not using this information to notify me when a session is overbooked. The Google session was overbooked today, twice as many people as the room could hold, you’d think Gartner, the technology company, could have figured that out and let me know.
