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A new year, a new set of information technology and social media predictions. Pretty much every major research company has produced their own papers to illustrate what they think will be the the trends in 2012.
I have tried to pick up the most interesting ones (at least in my view!) and to add some personal perspective. You can access the original material by clicking on the URLs at the bottom of this post.
Cloud. Everybody and their friend is talking cloud these days, often without really knowing what it is and what it can provide. Anyway, according to some market researchers, multi-cloud and cloud orchestration will become the norm in 2012. I believe that enterprise-class customers will go Private Cloud for pretty much all their major applications, except maybe a few very basic ones. These Private Clouds will still, for a while, be more a “virtualization” of the current in-house IT than a real cloud-based IT facility, but in time they will mature.
Cloud will commoditize further and as-a-service will become more pervasive. Offering for cloud-centric solutions are popping up everywhere, across customer segments and market industries. It reminds me of the rush to setup B2B portals ten years ago! I believe that the real differentiator between clouds will be the availability of as-a-service infrastructure facilities, software and applications. Cloud cost benefits will still be difficult to prove as a key value proposition, low-cost cloud providers might “disturb” some of the big players. Collaboration through cloud will probably improve too. It is expected that it will move from basic resource sharing to real collaboration, across type of information, business objectives and processes.
Business Intelligence and Big Data analysis will skyrocket. I think this is going to be the real new frontier for enterprises. SaaS will mature from CRM and collaboration apps to real BI and big data crunch. Exploiting big data will become a competitive advantage, although in 2012 I expect only the more innovative and advanced companies will implement significant instances (security and privacy being big scary monsters…).
Cloud brokerage might appear on the market. Because of the increase in number and types of cloud-based IT outsourcing offerings, there might emerge a trend to broker the best cloud features (e.g. cost, speed, security) to address client’s special needs (e.g. spikes of usage, temporary cloud spillovers, bursts). Innovative business models could spring up.
Access devices will continue to fundamentally change the way we work. Smart phone, tablets and generic mobile clients have changed the way people access information. As more executives and professionals perform their duties using these devices, there will be a higher need for fast and reliable mobile connections, as well as stronger security enforcement. Mobile apps targeted to smart phones and tablets will flood the market even further, to the detriment of more traditional access devices (laptops mainly).
IT security will remain a major headache across the IT spectrum: data-centers, access devices, network, applications and enterprise software. According to some analysts, more independent security testing of IT solution will be applied by enterprise-class companies.
In social media and technology, similar to the cloud over-provisioning, social networks are frankly too many and too fragmented in my view, so there is clear potential for consolidation.
Information curation will change gear and push news aggregation apps even further. Privacy in social media will remain highly sensitive, and there might be more a-ha moments like the recent CarrierIQ scandal.
Some observers predict a big change in the TV world, although I personally think that it will only happen if Apple’s iTV really is coming out with a revolutionary product in this space. True however that TV gets watched now on a broad range of devices not necessarily sitting in your living room anymore, and this trend will continue to accelerate.
Location based news, services and apps might bounce back. I personally am very disappointed with Gowalla selling out to Facebook and Foursquare disappointing trend. But the market potential for geo-based applications is still huge, I think.
There you go, my best effort at looking into the crystal ball for 2012! If only the economy would pick up in Europe….
DISCLAIMER: all of the above represents my personal perspective based on available market research and data points. This post does not reflect in any way the point of view, opinion or recommendations of the company I work for or of any company I do business with.
MORE MARKET RESEARCH INFORMATION
Forrester Cloud Predictions 2012
Mashable Social Media Trends 2012 via dreamgrow.com
Gartner 2012 Predictions via itbusiness.ca
Marc Andreesen predictions for 2012 via CNET News
Google Mobile Blog Look back at 2011
