This wee note is coming to you a month into the New Year and so it is far too late for me to wish you a happy 2010. It isn’t however too late for me to inflict on you all my views for how I feel this year is going to go for Lumison, our customers, and the wider technology market.

Here is my list of five things to look out for in coming year:

1. Datacentres will have to get greener: With the UK about to have the Carbon Reduction Commitment in place early in 2010, anyone consuming more than 6000 MWh of electricity will pay a carbon levy per tonne of C02.  Indeed, the datacentre industry is being hit by a carbon tax (not a bad thing per se) before the airline industry. In addition, the UK is being hit first, with a lack of clarity on rollout across Europe, let alone on global competitors.  The principles are sound, beware the laws on unintended consequences.

2. Unified Comms will come of age: The use of voicemail, email, web conferencing and other online tools is already prevalent, but truly integrating these platforms into a seamless experience is coming of age.

3. Paying for things: Free stuff is so 2009. Now, we all know that anything of value has to cost us something, hence the growth of Freemium models (free to start off, pay for the premium services, or the real value). The Wall St Journal is charging because its content costs money to deliver to the quality and standard they want to maintain. Free models appear to be unsustainable unless you are in a monopoly position from an advertising perspective (read “Google”).

4. “Rightsourcing”: Yes, you’ve heard of Outsourcing, Insourcing, and now we are proud to bring you Rightsourcing. The IT industry has been obsessed of late with taking your problems and “wholly managing” them for you. The reality however is that for many businesses, some applications are innately technical, not from an IT perspective but from the point of view of your business processes in a way that is unique to you.  This year, we feel there will be a move towards outsourcing the hygiene factors - the elements of your IT that are not unique to your business (email, communications, storage) - but IT managers will manage the areas which rely on their deep knowledge of the businesses they are responsible for.

5. ICT investment will improve through 2010: Businesses in the UK have traditionally not invested as much in IT as their US counterparts – and have seen a concomitant lower productivity per employee. This is unsustainable going forward, and if the UK hopes to compete in the knowledge economy of the future, then improving the national productivity per employee will require recognition of the role good IT has to play in this story.

So, while we may only be just coming out of recession in the UK and the outlook for 2010 will be mixed across different markets, there are a number of reasons to believe the Internet and IT industries will play an ever more important role in helping businesses compete their way out of recession this year.