International Data Corporation has presented their top ten technology predictions for 2014. Frank Gens, Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst at IDC hosted a webinar to present the same. While each prediction carries its own significance, the ones made in relation to cloud computing, mobile device onslaught and 3rd platform has prompted most experts to discuss upon.
Summing up the focal points of the technological forecast, Frank Gens, has stated – ‘’In 2014, we’ll see every major player make big investments to scale up cloud, mobile, and big data capabilities, and fiercely battle for the hearts and minds of the developers who will create the solutions driving the next two decades of IT spending. Outside the IT industry, 3rd Platform technologies will play a leading role in the disruption (or “Amazoning”) of almost every other industry on the planet.”
In what follows is a summarized version of IDC’s eight technological predictions for 2014
1. Worldwide IT spending will grow to $2.1 trillion in 2014. IT spending will see an unprecedented hike. One of the main reasons for this will be the affinity for 3rd Platform technologies, which will constitute 89% of total IT spending growth. In addition to 3rd platform technologies, smartphones and tablets will continue to get sold at a sweltering pace. Also, servers, software, and services will perform better in 2014 than 2013. However, the PC market will decline by 6% over the year.
2. Emerging markets will drive $740 billion or 35% of worldwide IT revenues and, for the first time, account for more than 60% of worldwide IT spending growth. China’s IT spending potential will be equal to United States even though the Chinese market is one third the size of the U.S. market. The BRIC countries will witness IT spending growth by 13%.
3. Value will migrate “up the stack”, from infrastructure as a service (IaaS) to platform as a service (PaaS). Additionally value will migrate from generic PaaS to data-optimized PaaS. Reason: Amazon Web Services has rolled out platform-as-a-service offerings for developers and higher value services for businesses. Needless to say, this new development will compel the existing IT suppliers (leaders in the 2nd Platform) – to reconfigure their service offerings for gaining leadership in 3rd Platform marketplace.
4. Sales of tablets will grow by 18% and smartphones by 12%. The Android community will have a strong advantage over Apple. However, Apple too will maintain its growth with higher average selling prices and an established ecosystem of apps. Google Play app downloads and revenues will make dramatic gains.
In sum, the mobile device onslaught will continue in 2014.
5. Cloud spending, including cloud services and the technology to enable these services, will grow by 25% in 2014, reaching over $100B. Further, IDC predicts that by 2017, more than 80% of new cloud apps will be hosted on six PaaS platforms.
There will be a dramatic increase in the number of datacenters. Reason: cloud vendors will expand their number of data centers to be strategically positioned in different parts of the world to cater to a global audience. Greater variety of cloud infrastructure services will come into picture in 2014. As a result, vendors will introduce more classification of their cloud-based services.
6. Investment on big data technologies and services will grow by 30% in 2014. IDC is also predicting that big data analytics services 2014 spending will exceed $4.5B, growing 21% over 2013.
‘’Data-optimized cloud platforms”, will be in high demand. Data brokers will multiply since most enterprises will be in search of data sources and applications to understand customers, products, and markets.
7. Social technologies will become increasingly integrated into existing enterprise applications over the next 12-18 months. By 2017, 80% of Fortune 500 companies will have an active customer community. By 2016, 60% of the Fortune 500 will deploy social-enabled innovation management solutions.
Social technology will not just assist in customer and marketing strategies. Data captured through social applications will be utilized in product and service development process. Resultant of which, social networks will become a part of standard cloud offerings. Enterprises too, will embed social into the workflow, rather than having it as an extension.
8. Market for server, storage, and networking components will be driven by cloud service providers. Reason: cloud-based datacenters will grow in number and importance. Even the IT hardware vendors, will adopt a “cloud-first” strategy. They will play an instrumental role in the widespread adoption of cloud dedicated datacenters.
