Every business desires to be the leader of their industry in 2015. It will take time to study and make prepare for every opportunity that will present itself for their gain. Technology has proved beyond reasonable doubt that it offers the necessary leverage when used strategically for magnificent performance.
In this blog we share the technologies that we predict will be center stage on the technology and business scene. Such technologies if strategically applied to your business will radically impact the business for greater profitability, greater competitive advantage and greater organizational efficiency. We hope that with the knowledge of your organization, you can already start to visualize how some of these technologies could impact your business for the year 2015.
Phones and wearables driving computing everywhere
Mobile devices have rapidly proliferated the market massively with more and more growth in the functionality, applicability and impact to the individual owners. With the year 2015, we not only expect a focus on the mobile devices, but much more, there will be a focus on the how to serve the needs of the owner of the mobile device in their natural but diverse and complex environments.Apple has made some big strides in the wearables market and come the year 2015 we expect more competition in that sector; new devices, protocols and applications.
The above only expand the computing space for such technologies as consumer electronics, as well as connected screens for both public and private workplaces. This means that the working environment will have to change in adoption of mobile user’s needs. In that case, IT organizations may face management challenges such as losing control over the endpoint devices for users as the end users choose to use mobile devices. There will be need to focus on user experience design.
Internet of Things (IoT) vs. Internet of Anything (IoA)
In the year 2015 we look forward to more advancement in IoT and IoA. The mix of data streams and services that is as a result of digitizing everything led to the four basic usage models. They include; Manage, monetize, operate, and Extend. With these four, there is no limitations to application of internet to ‘things’ alone (machines and assets), 2015 will see this application expand from having only the machines and assets to just ‘anything’. Take for instance, the pay-per-use model; it can be applied to assets (pay-per-use of industrial equipment), it can also be applied to services (pay-per-use for insurance on driving; pay-as-you-drive), to places (pay-per-use of parking slots), to people (movers) and to systems (pay-per-use of cloud). Every enterprise can customize the usage of this model for their benefit.
Security focus
2014 has had its share of security breaches as well as scares for many companies. The threat of insecurity is very real for organizations worldwide. But organizations need to realize that there is no 100% guarantee for security. This calls for development of security strategies by organizations for such eventualities. 2015 will see more sophisticated risk management applications, strategies and mitigation tools
To this end perimeters as well as firewalls have not been able to work. We expect to see security-aware applications, context aware, run time, adoptive controls and self-protecting applications, and security testing for both static and dynamic applications. The target is for every app to be self-aware and also be self-protecting.
Analytics and Smart Machines
2015 is sure to see more advanced, invisible and pervasive analytics. Big data from embedded systems will continue to increase. Structured and unstructured data from within and without the enterprise is already being analyzed and 2015 will see more advancement in this analysis. In the case of security, the systems are able to understand the environment and context of the user’ request, the system is able to come up with its response and determine how to deliver information to the user. To a greater extent, this innovation will address the emerging complexities that exist in the security sector. Those making apps need to focus on how to sharpen the analytics aspect in their apps. Organization will now have the burden of how to filter the rich data from IoT/IoA, mobile devices and wearables, and social media among others. They will need to ensure that the right information is delivered to the right person at the right time. We expect more depth in analysis and that will be invisible but present almost everywhere. There is need to shift focus from ‘big data’ to how it big data can answer the ‘big questions’ and add ‘big value’ to the organization.
The evolution and advancement in the context awareness technology as well as growth in deep analytics will form a fertile ground for smart machines in 2015. There already exist such applications of this concept as prototype autonomous vehicles, virtual personal assistants, very advanced robots, and smart advisors. These make use of advanced algorithms, context/environment awareness to learn for themselves and then act autonomously. We hope to see more developments and advancements to boost the era of machine helpers. This is deemed to be the most disruptive technology soon to hit the world. There has been more focus on using the past to predict the future. Through data mining, predictive analysis focuses on the future to enable predictions in such areas as homeland security, management of infrastructure, intelligent transportation, text mining, social media, bioinformatics and healthcare.
Cloud and Software
Cloud has already disrupted how businesses are conducted; the scalability, cost effectiveness, and self-service computing. In 2015, we hope to see more dynamic than static models that will sufficiently address the rapidly changing digital market. Apps are geared to support the simultaneous use of multiple devices. There will be more exploration in the area of games and enterprise applications making use of wearables, and multiple screens for an enhanced experience.
A close ally of the cloud would be Software, which is used to control hardware. As more functions are moved into the cloud, we are noticing software defined storage, infrastructure, data centers and networking, all which work toward interoperability.
Clearly many of these trends align not only with RAY ALLEN solutions, but also with your environments and ecosystems across the many industries. What are your top priorities for 2015? Contact us today to discuss how we can help you exceed the expectations for success in the New Year.