About this time last year, I took a look back at some of the macro trends that hit their stride during 2007. I thought it would be interesting to see which of those trends are still noteworthy, which new ones are on the radar, and generally how the landscape has changed.

Server virtualization remains perhaps the hottest trend in IT. It may no longer be pegging the hype meter quite as hard, but that’s only because server virtualization has moved into the mainstream. It’s ever more clearly one of those fundamental developments that touches and transforms all manner of associated technologies, products, and processes.

To be sure, lots of virtualization customers are still using it for relatively straightforward server consolidation, but more and more are also implementing high availability and other services on top of a virtualization foundation. One notable event during the year was the ouster of Diane Greene from VMware’s helm, but so far, neither this nor Microsoft’s increasingly aggressive virtualization efforts have had a substantial impact on VMware’s position as market leader.

Alternative clients are ways of provisioning applications and delivering software services that differ from the loading up of an operating system and clients on a traditional PC. This includes accessing applications through a browser interface. It also includes a variety of technologies that, collectively, keep desktop applications and/or operating systems in the data center, and push them out to user devices–including, but not limited to, thin clients–in a managed way.

This trend continues to gather pace, albeit in a relatively measured way, with security and compliance often the primary driving force. Most major virtualization players have steadily broadened their portfolios to encompass both client-side and server-side virtualization, taking advantage of one with the other.
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Power and cooling
Intel’s resurgence
Open source and open-source licenses
cloud computing