In 1894, when Italian Guglielmo Marconi invented a way to send messages through the air, the Italian government turned down his offer of first rights because it saw no use for the technology. After all, Marconi's crude prototype could only send signals a hundred yards − hardly a match for the growing popularity of the telephone.

Who would have known such a weak transmission method would pave the way for everything from television to cellular phones? Even now, 100 years later, wireless is still opening up new markets and changing the way governments and businesses communicate and operate.

Marconi's wireless invention represents what some historians call "disruptive technologies." These are technologies − the internal combustion engine, transistors and the Web browser, for example − that not only create new industries, but eventually change the world.

Disruptive technologies often come from outside the mainstream. The light bulb was not invented by the candle industry looking to improve output. Owners of established technologies tend to focus on making incremental improvements to their own products, avoiding the potential threat to their own businesses by not focusing on real innovation.

The term disruptive technology was coined by Clayton M. Christensen and described in his 1997 book "The Innovator's Dilemma�. In his sequel, “The Innovator's Solution�, Christensen replaced the term with the term disruptive innovation because he recognized that few technologies are intrinsically disruptive or sustaining in character. It is strategy that creates the disruptive impact.

As practitioners constantly searching for the cutting-edge, we get to deal with a lot of emerging technologies at the Major & Minor Group. Here are a few technologies that we feel will change the world in five-to-seven years.

Technology	Now	Future
Wimax	Separate cellular and broadband providers Last-mile considerable investment for broadband	Dwindling earnings for telecos that ignore WiMax High-speed Internet connections become commonplace
	Considerable teleco revenues from long-distance calls Government in some countries legislation to regulate introduction	Reduced revenues from long-distance calls VoIP on WiMax is a killer combination More impetus to unify IP address and phone numbering schemes
Web Services	Objects, J2EE and COM are de-facto standards Most enterprise data still in islands. EAI still a difficult affair	Increase in loosely-coupled systems Choice in platforms and languages based more on available skills not on requirements
Free Software	Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) have dispersed usage GNU/Linux mostly used in server applications	Better service-levels due to increased usage of robust FOSS applications Specialized GNU/Linux distributions for use in desktops and mobile phones
RFID	Reading bar-codes demand physical access to goods RFID adoption ready for a surge	Tracking to become easier from manufacturing to sales Strong debates on information privacy laws
Virtualization	Tightly integrated software and hardware Reliance on JAVA technology to isolate platform dependency	Mainframes to get a larger market-share Loosely-coupled hardware and software
Digital Identity	Identity based on documents and passwords Identity stealing is a growing concern	Stronger two-factor authentication systems Biometric identity becomes common place Growth in Single Sign-On (SSO) solution market