In recent years, tech has been caught on a series of hype trains, from big data to blockchain to artificial intelligence to cloud computing to 5G and everything in between.

But 2019 might just be the year that your IT department finally takes all these hyped technologies and figures out how to make them work within your organization, according to the latest edition of CompTIA’s IT Industry Outlook.

The report goes so far as to call the next big thing “dead,” instead pointing to how each of these pieces work together to create a wholly innovative whole.

“The implications are both exciting—the ingredients of innovation have never been more accessible—and trying, as users and technology providers work to understand an ever-growing set of building blocks and how the pieces fit to drive digital transformation,” the report says.

Here are a few of the report’s other key points:

The U.S. is big, but so is everywhere else. The report notes that the IT industry is likely to hit $5 trillion this year. The U.S. represents 31 percent of the total, making it the largest single market. Despite the size of the U.S. market, the majority of technology spending (69 percent) occurs beyond its borders. For example, Asia-Pacific accounts for approximately one-of-every-three technology dollars spent worldwide. CompTIA estimates that the growth in tech is coming from a variety of sectors, including the home market, but the bulk remains with corporations and government entities.

Mature infrastructure will drive the future. The report makes it clear that emerging trends still do exist, including edge computing and 5G, but the driver of the growth will be the power of the overarching infrastructure to bring everything together. “In the mature U.S. market, for example,” the report says, “there is robust infrastructure and platforms, a large installed base of users equipped with connected devices, and bandwidth. This paves the way for investments in the software and services that sit on top of this foundation.”

Tech pros are getting better at understanding unintended consequences. With interest in the sociopolitical impact of technology at an all-time high, IT departments are thinking less about the solution itself and more about the way it could manifest itself in an unanticipated direction. “As there is a shift to a broader system mindset, there is the opportunity—and the obligation—to consider the full extent of the system being implemented,” the report says.

The tech partnership is making a comeback. The report states that an ecosystem of partners that speak to one another has been long desired in the IT space, but has proved difficult to come by. However, with the growth of Software as a Service platforms, an opening appears to be showing itself. “There is renewed optimism about partnerships, due in large part to the expanding ecosystem of new channel players from the SaaS world eager to pair up with traditional infrastructure practitioners,” the report adds.

In a news release, CompTIA President and CEO Todd Thibodeaux stated that the association aims to bridge the gaps that could hold tech back this year.

“While the potential is great, the challenges and anxieties are great, too,” Thibodeaux said. “Our mission is to work with the tech community, and the workforce of today and tomorrow, to turn the possibilities of innovation into the realities of real-word benefits for the users of technology.”

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