Mobile has gone mad it seems! Gartner recently listed its ‘Top Ten Strategic Technologies for 2012,’ and mobile centric applications and interfaces topped the list. Gartner defines strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years.

Before we get into what Gartner considers so noteworthy about going mobile, let’s first take a look at the factors that denote technology as having a ‘significant impact.’ These three factors include high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, and the risk of being late to adopt.

According to Gartner’s analyst, “These top 10 technologies will be strategic for most organizations, and IT leaders should use this list in their strategic planning process by reviewing the technologies and how they fit into their expected needs.”

When it came to discussing mobile, Gartner was not shy with declaring that the user interface (UI) paradigm as we know it, the one that has been in place for the past 20 years, will drastically change. “UI’s with Windows, icons, menus and pointers will be replaced by mobile-centric interfaces emphasizing touch, gesture, search, voice and video.”

Applications are also likely to change according to Gartner. This shift will be towards more specific and adaptable apps. “Applications themselves are likely to shift to more focused and simple apps that can be assembled into more complex solutions.”

Changes taking place in the world of mobility will ultimately drive a need for new user interface design skills as well, seeing that building these type of application user interfaces require in-depth knowledge of both “fragmented building blocks and an adaptable programming structure that assembles them into optimized content for each device.”

The good news is that mobile consumer application platform tools and mobile enterprise platform tools are on the rise, making development in the cross-platform environment less complicated. Gartner predicts that by 2015, mobile web technologies will have advanced sufficiently, so much in fact, that half of the applications that would be written as native apps in 2011 will instead be delivered as web apps.

Speaking of apps, Gartner also forecasts “that by 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile application downloads from app stores every year. This will grow from a consumer-only phenomenon, to an enterprise focus.”

All in all, if your business has yet to make some massive strides into the mobile playing field, there is no time like the present. According to Gartner, mobile is one of the ten core technologies that will be strategic for most organizations in the years to come. So hold onto your mobile devices, because the ride into the future is going to be a wireless one! Check out Cameleon’s Mobile Configurator.