With security and software distribution managed at the network/server level, the desktop device becomes less relevant. Of course, this brave new world does have serious implications from a support standpoint. Lower support and maintenance costs are among the main drivers of standardization. There are also implications for asset management and tracking. It's hard enough to manage and track desktop assets when the IT department is procuring and managing all the hardware.

My advice: Plan for a long-term future where neither standardization nor central procurement of desktop IT assets is a given.

Consumer-driven technology adoption. It used to be that corporations dictated and drove technology adoption, and that those technologies eventually found their way into the mainstream. For example, I got my first e-mail account around 1991 through my employer. Like most people, I had e-mail at work before I had it at home.

That's not the way it works today. Consumers are ahead of businesses in adopting technologies. As a result, you can expect future employees to bring their own technologies to work, along with an expectation that they may use those technologies on the job. We've already seen this phenomenon with instant messaging and Skype (for voice over IP), and even Excel add-ins.

Traditionally, IT has shunned this notion, the prevailing wisdom being (once again) that such actions fly in the face of standardization, security and other good things that IT tends to value. Going forward, people will view employers that try to lock down and lock out consumer-driven technologies as undesirable and stodgy.