Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013 … as highlighted at A Channel Partners Slide Show

1. Mobile Device Battles • By 2013, mobile phones are predicted to take over as the most common Web access devices, booting PCs out of the top spot. • More than 80 percent of handsets sold in mature markets will be smartphones in 2015, but only 20 percent will be Windows phones. • Media tablet shipments will be about half that of laptop shipments, and Windows 8 will likely be in third place ― behind Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

2. Mobile Applications and HTML5 • For the next few years, no single tool will be optimal for mobile applications ― so expect to employ several. • Six mobile architectures will remain popular: native, special, hybrid, HTML5, Message, and No Client • As HTML5 becomes more capable, there will be a long-term shift from native apps to Web apps. • Native apps won’t disappear and will always offer the best user experience and most sophisticated features.

3. Personal Cloud • The personal cloud will gradually replace the PC as the center of Web users’ digital lives. • Users will see the personal cloud as a portable, always-available place where they can go for all their digital needs. • Focus will shift from the client device to cloud-based services delivered across devices.

4. Enterprise App Stores • Enterprises must deal with multiple stores, payment processes and sets of licensing terms as some vendors limit their stores to specific devices and types of apps. • Many organizations will deliver mobile applications to workers through private application stores by 2014. • Role of IT shifts from centralized planner to market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users ― potentially even an ecosystem to support “apptrepreneurs.”

5. The Internet of Things • The Internet will expand as physical items like consumer devices and physical assets are connected to the Net. • Key elements of IoT in mobile devices: embedded sensors, image recognition technologies, NFC payments • Smartphones and intelligent devices no longer just use the cellular network ― they communicate via NFC, Bluetooth, LE and Wi-Fi to wristwatch displays, health-care sensors, smart posters and home entertainment systems. • The IoT will enable numerous new applications/services.

6. Hybrid IT and Cloud Computing • Internal cloud services brokerage role is emerging as IT organizations realize responsibility to improve consumption of cloud services for users and business partners. • This CSB role represents a means for IT organizations to retain/build influence in the organization and become value centers while facing challenges related to an increased adoption of the cloud.

7. Strategic Big Data • Big Data is shifting the focus from individual projects to an influence on enterprises’ strategic information architecture. • Organizations will abandon the concept of a single enterprise data warehouse containing all info needed for decisions. • Movement toward multiple systems, including content management, data warehouses, data marts and specialized file systems tied in with data services and metadata

8. Actionable Analytics • Improvement of performance and costs allows IT leaders to perform analytics and simulation for every action taken in the business • The mobile client linked to cloud-based analytic engines and big data repositories could enable use of simulation everywhere, every time. • This new step empowers more decision flexibility of every business process action.

9. In-Memory Computing • IMC can squeeze batch processes normally lasting hours into minutes or seconds. • These processes are provided in the form of real-time or near real-time services and delivered to users in the form of cloud services. • Numerous vendors will deliver in-memory solutions over the next two years, driving this approach into mainstream use.

10. Integrated Ecosystems • Shift to more integrated systems/ecosystems • Driving this trend: (1) User’s desire for low costs, simplicity and assured security and (2) vendor’s ability to control solution stack and obtain greater margin of sale • In the mobile world, vendors like Apple, Google and Microsoft drive control across the end-to-end ecosystem, extending the client through the apps.

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