-Danny Wootton is director of innovation at Logica. The opinions expressed are his own.-

As ever with the Consumer Electronics Show, there has been a flurry of announcements of new technology and the latest must have gadgets.  However, depending on how you look at what comes out of this show and what your view is on the consumerisation of enterprise IT, then you can either think of the show a geek heaven or an insight to the technologies and tools we’ll all be using in our organisations in years to come.

So I thought I’d look through some of the major announcements and trends and take a look at how and when we can expect to see them in business.

The World In 3D

The show saw a plethora of 3D related announcements covering 3D content, products and services. The range of hardware devices included 3DTVs, Blu-ray players, AV receivers, PCs and Games Consoles, with Sony showing 3D gaming on the PS3.  From a service perspective we are also starting to see organisations such as Sky and ESPN provide 3D TV. There is also a promise of 3D mobile devices, tablets and the emergence of Autostereocopy, the delivery of 3D with the need for special eyewear.

So what for business, well one element will be that over the coming years, 3D technology will enter the workspace subtly through standardisation, where equipment will incorporate 3D as a standard feature, such as PCs, Laptops etc.  However, will there be a business need – well yes I think there will, but in a fairly niche way, with 3D being used to enhance areas such as data visualisation solutions, and virtual world asset management solutions in sectors that have large and complex physical assets such as oil refineries, power stations and water treatment plants.

I also see 3D being used heavily in training a few years from now.  Logica already provide training in virtual world environments and solutions where we combine virtual world experiences with real world physical assets.  I think it is a simple extension to move these into a 3D environment.

3D Sensor/Scanner solutions such as Xbox Kinect will also start to be used in training environments to being more realism to virtual world training environments

Tablets

I think 2011 will be the ‘year of the tablet’, with the devices spreading like rabbits (2011 is the year of the rabbit in China), although 2012 will probably be the year of the enterprise tablet.  I don’t know how many years the industry has been touting the benefits of tablets, it took the iPad launch to finally get mass market scale and now many companies have launched their own alternative products – I think CES 2011 saw over 80 announcements of new products.

So, how will this flow through to the enterprise.  Although we see a small amount of tablet usage in business already, I think it will 2012 when we really start to see a rapid take up of the devices for business use.  This will be driven by three things.  Consumer take up in 2011 will mean that more individuals bringing their devices into the office, applying pressure onto the IT organisation to use their devices on the corporate network – consumerisation of IT.  The next factor will be the corporate buying cycle and the need to have enterprise levels of security, encryption and traceability on the device.  These solutions are starting to emerge, but are not currently mainstream.  The final driver is the development of enterprise apps for tablets. For tablets to generate real volume in the enterprise space, will be access to corporate CRM, ERP and other apps, designed for ease of use with a table, not just replicating a PC

Apps

With more and more companies moving development resource to app development or developing app versions of their software in parallel to other versions, the app market continues to grow.  We have also seen recent announcements of non-mobile device companies getting into the app store space.  Additionally, we have seen announcements by Microsoft and ARM that lead us towards the possibility of Windows running on any and all types of devices (rather than mobile variants etc).  So the spread of app use and processing power of mobile devices continues to grow.

The Internet Of Things

We have seen and talked about the internet of things for a few years now and there have been ethernet and WiFi enabled devices available for some time, but this year, we are starting to see thought go into how the user interacts with those devices – connected through apps, browsers on TV etc.  I think what we’ll see develop through this year is a better understanding of how all of these internet-enabled devices start to link together for the end user.  This will include things in the home, office, on the road etc.

For me, the flow of this into business will start to see – finally – a take up of M2M (machine to machine) and a better understanding of how M2M can be used by individuals within a business.  The awareness of connected things in the consumer world starts to raise awareness of the value that can be generated in the business world.  However, the change that needs to happen in business to build momentum is looking beyond the connectivity.  I see M2M starting to be positioned as Cost Reduction Through M2M Enabled Information Management, Operational Efficiency Through M2M Enabled Insight & Foresight Into Business Performance, Increase Revenue Through New M2M Enabled Services.

It is pretty well accepted that budget cuts in public spending are inevitable, but it is important that a plan to effectively use the funding that will be available to stimulate the economy and drive innovation forward is developed.

This cannot be achieved through a fragmented approach. Overall, we need to have a joined up funding programme to stimulate innovation; from education to research, to incubation and through to commercialisation – in effect an innovation eco-system.

By laying out a path to an innovative culture over the coming years, it allows us to maximise the returns from limited future funding available.

One of the key elements of a connected innovation eco-system is the recognition that innovation is not just about invention or research, but also about the successful exploitation of those ideas for a positive benefit, be that economic, social or environmental.

Obviously, many people will have different views on what that plan and areas of competitive advantage should be, and that’s not for me to decide, however, I would be very disappointed if it didn’t include areas such as; a low carbon technologies such as a leading position in electric vehicles and the national infrastructure needed to support them, renewable energy, eco-mobility, the space industry and future security including physical and cyber.

But as I say, we should look at all of those areas a eco-systems that need an end to end plan.

Let’s start with schools and education – although it is important that we continue to support the arts in our education system, from schools to universities, but we also need a ‘connected plan’ to ensure we are investing in areas of education that we see as the stimulus for future economic growth in the next 10-20 years, making sure we have a range of GCSEs and degrees that map onto the country’s future growth sectors to ensure we have an adequate supply of suitably skilled employees in the future.

The same applies to research.

We need to ensure that we are investing in research programmes that will give the country a competitive advantage in the coming decades.  If we run our country like a business, we would have a strategy, of which an R&D plan and a view of ‘what we want to be famous for’, I am not sure I see that for the UK.  Usually, we would say that we shouldn’t constrain our research teams and we should allow them to think freely, however, in these times of limited funding, we need to have a clearer plan of where to spend our limited public funding.

To achieve the ‘success exploitation’ described above, another area that needs to be support, but is often overlooked, is the incubation and commercialisation of innovations.  Many Regional Development Agencies do a good job of incubating local university spin-outs or start-ups, but there is often a gap between these activities and partnering models with larger companies, who often have the funds to commercialise these ideas, plus have the routes to market.

A funding stream for incubation centres to support innovation should be maintained, plus incentives for larger businesses to work with those centres in the exploitation of ideas, whilst maintaining or increasing the levels of R&D tax credits for businesses own development activities.

It is clear that from the research completed and the work that Logica are doing with many of its clients, that the implementing and commercialising of ideas is still a massive problem for British businesses and therefore continued support in this area is essential.

So, how do we fund all of the above activities in a time of reduction in public funding?  Well for me its about looking at finding innovative ways of spending less rather than tax increases.

We live in a world where technology can easily be used to provide a more co-ordinated way of managing public procurement; taking a more dynamic approach to public programmes allowing the public sector to quickly benefit from changes in services and technologies, buying shared services across multiple public sector organisations to get economies of scale, simple procurement frameworks allowing smaller SME businesses to work with government etc.

With the right overall plan, none of the above are beyond the capability of the current or future governments, let’s hope it’s on their agenda.

Alistair Darling is facing the most difficult set of economic circumstances for any chancellor since the 1940s, with the projected substantial fiscal deficits for 2009 – 2010 and 2010 – 2011 likely to be revised upwards from 175 billion pounds to well in excess of 200 billion pounds. He must perform a delicate balancing act to secure the confidence of the global financial markets while protecting any fragile economic recovery and boosting public confidence.

The Chancellor is likely to increase the yield from income tax, national insurance, VAT and customs duties, which are the biggest revenue generators for the Government.

I think we’ll see the restriction or removal of corporation tax reliefs but, if the chancellor takes this course of action, he should recognise the continued impact of the credit crunch by exempting losses accumulated up to March 2010.

There could also be a boost for the hard-hit construction sector by cutting VAT on repair and refurbishment of residential property to five per cent (or even to the nil VAT rate). Elsewhere in the sector, the chancellor may crack down on certain Stamp Duty Land Tax planning arrangements for very large commercial real estate transactions. He should further clarify the anti-avoidance provisions as lobbied for by the real estate sector.

Individual taxpayers will probably escape any change to the basic and higher rates of income tax, but the chancellor may try to generate more revenue from national insurance by increasing the upper earnings limit or contribution rates or restrict personal tax reliefs for individuals paying income tax at the 40 per cent rate and the proposed 50 per cent rate.

Individual taxpayers could even be hit by an increase in VAT from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent (or even more) but only to take effect from July 2010 0r January 2011.

The majority of the measures announced are likely to be deferred to take effect after the General Election. Whether or not Alistair Darling has an opportunity to implement them remains to be seen.