Gartner foresees mobile workers abandoning notebooks for smaller, more portable mobile devices (“new classes of Internet-centric pocketable devices at the sub-$400 level”) by 2012.

The year 2012 will also mark a time when 80% of all commercial software will include open-source elements. Simultaneously, a third of business software spending will have moved from buying product licenses to service subscriptions.

By 2011, Gartner expects the number of 3D printers to increase 100 fold from their 2006 levels. With 3D printers falling below $10,000, the firm expects consumers and business to warm to the idea of “printing” 3D models.