Top Trends to Watch
for ForwardView 2017

By: Bill Chamberlin

We are quickly moving towards the start of a new year! We are all living in a point in time where we are witnessing a historic shift in computing to one that is cloud-based and rich in data and analytical capabilities. This is leading us towards the cognitive computing era, which will totally transform the way we work, play and live our daily lives.  As we witness and participate in this digital transformation, it is a great time to pause and think about what are the important trends to watch in the information technology industry. This article discusses ten important technology trends that are enabling this shift to a new computing platform, which will transform business processes, business models and entire industries.
  1. Security: This is perhaps the most important long-term trend in information technology. For decades, we’ve programmed computers to recognize viruses, malware and exploits. We continuously tune them to become more accurate, but it’s not enough. Today, adversaries constantly morph their attacks and find creative ways to breach defenses. Thus, security is now a C-Level and boardroom issue and it will remain so. Complexity of external threats are increasing because of adoption of cloud, social, big data, mobile, and IoT trends. What organizations need is the ability to detect the subtlest change in activity and analyze it with as much context as possible to distinguish and eliminate new threats. Spending is increasing, but companies are looking to reduce number of vendors. In 2017, we should expect continued strong demand for professional services and network security applications and demand will increase for SIEM, IAM and mobile security solutions.
  2. Cloud Computing: The entire cloud computing landscape continues to be a disruptive trend that is impacting all enterprises and all industries. We are about seven years into the mass adoption of cloud and it virtually all IT buyers are considering cloud implementations as the first choice for new solutions. At a high-level, cloud computing is segmented into three types: public, private and hybrid. Of those three, hybrid computing is where all the attention is as IT buyers are embracing hybrid and multi-cloud operations and services. Within cloud, offering segments include IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. Important trends to watch in 2017 include cloud brokerage, cloud development platforms, DevOps, vertically tailored cloud solutions, Containers, and the Intersection of cloud with mobile, IoT, cognitive and security trends.
  3. Mobile Computing: Mobile has already transformed how we live and work. Companies are focused on launching new platforms, applications, products and services to take advantage of mobile capabilities. Application growth is continuing to drive all mobile initiatives. In 2017, expect to see a focus on mobile analytics and location-based services. Application management solutions continue to be in demand, but enterprises are still in early stages of Enterprise Mobility Management deployments. Security and real-time risk awareness are top concerns. In 2017, we need to begin to understand the how cognitive computing capabilities will be developed and delivered to enterprise mobile apps and platforms and it will be important to understand use cases by vertical industry.
  4. Internet of Things (IoT): IoT is driving digital disruption of the physical world, accelerating advances in technology and transforming every part of our lives. We expect 2017 will bring continued explosive growth of connected devices and will drive even more data into enterprise systems. There is so much going on related to the building of IoT networks, platforms and systems. It is sort of a gold rush now with developers rushing to build apps and vendors rushing to court developers. Enterprises are still experimenting with small pilot projects, but we know that those small IoT projects are paving the way for futureCognitive IoT transformation. Security and Interoperability remain barriers to adoption. Also, many enterprises lack IoT development and integration skills internally, so many enterprises will turn to consultants for help. In 2017, we need to begin to understand how to deploy analytics to the very edge of these IoT networks.
  5. Big Data: Remember when “Big Data” was all the hype? Well, we are beyond the hype, but the explosion of new data continues at a rapid paced, thanks to the IoT trend. IT teams continue to try to figure out how to collect, store and manage the data securely so it can be analyzed. Interoperability of databases has become a huge requirement as we have seen the rise of low-cost data store alternatives, like Hadoop, Cloudera and Spark. This is happening as users are demanding an improved data analytics experience. In 2017, decision makers will increasingly ask for real time analysis of data streams coming into the enterprise. Other trends to watch include the impact of cloud adoption on databases and the impact of the digital IoT transformation that is driving demand for distributed data storage.
  6. Analytics: The growth in analytics capabilities is such an important trend. Enterprises look to adopt analytics solutions to help them make better business decisions, reduce costs and improve business outcomes. Increasingly, enterprises are becoming more data-driven, spurring demand for improved analytics solutions. The adoption of IoT platforms and networks will only increase the data coming into an enterprise and that will drive the demand for analytics solutions and services. There will be requirements for improved back and front office solutions. An important trend is that we are seeing IT and Line of Business executives participate jointly in both buying decisions and in the deployments of analytic solutions and services. As more analytics capabilities become embedded into systems, this will put pressure on enterprise culture, skills and business processes. Vendors and consultants can help here by providing integration and management services.
  7. Cognitive Computing / Artificial Intelligence: We are in the early stage of a new era of computing. Cognitive systems will transform how businesses operate and deliver customer value. As enterprises increasingly look to technology to drive greater efficiency, engage better with customers and uncover untapped sources of revenue, a cognitive computing system that can process massive volumes of data and, more importantly, learn and adapt based on new inputs with diminishing human intervention over time will become an increasingly attractive proposition. We are seeing increased activity on all fronts, including vendor ecosystems, developers and enterprise pilots. In 2017, we all need to begin to learn more about the enabling technologies, business processes and culture/skills that need to be in place to make cognitive systems successful. And to need understand the how cognitive computing capabilities will impact every business process in every vertical industry.
  8. API drives Digital Transformation: APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are accelerating the digital transformation of our entire economy. More firms are starting to view APIs as strategic assets and software products and as they do, this will have significant impact on the automation of business processes. As IoT adoption grows, devices and things will increasingly use application programming interfaces (APIs) to communicate, transact and even negotiate with one another. An organization’s core assets and processes can be reused, shared, and monetized through APIs that can extend the reach of existing services or provide new revenue streams. APIs should be managed like a product—one built on top of a potentially complex technical footprint that includes legacy and third-party systems and data.
  9. Blockchain: Blockchain is perhaps the most hyped technology being discussed by analysts and in the media. In 2017, we will see continued awareness and initiatives grow for this hyper ledger of transactions called blockchain, which is new type of decentralized consensus technology. A blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously-growing list of records secured from tampering and revision. Each block contains a timestamp and a link to a previous block. The potential impact on Financial Services and digital payments will be huge, but it will impact all types of transactions between people, business and things. The Linux Foundation is taking a leadership position in the development of blockchain standards. This will be a critical development in enabling a secure IoT. In 2017, look for developers to increasingly embed blockchain capabilities into industry clouds and IoT platforms.
  10. Data-Driven Economy: Interactions between citizens and organizations are increasingly becoming digital. As companies become more digital, they begin to recognize the value of monetizing the data they collect and the insights from analyzing that data. Companies have historically managed assets such as property, plants, equipment, inventory, cash and intellectual property. In today’s digital world, a new type of asset and revenue source is emerging – data. Companies are reporting, collecting, and analyzing vast volumes of data…morphing into data gathering and data insight organizations. The rise in connected devices and IoT platforms is creating new feeds that can be shared throughout an organization and it's ecosystem. In addition, improved cross-enterprise and cross-ecosystem data/application integration will unlock new data monetization opportunities. As we look to 2017, we need to understand better how to monetize data and how that impacts business processes and business models. And it will be important to understand uses cases, trends, drivers by vertical industry.
This is an exciting time to be involved in developing and deploying information technology solutions.The intersection of cloud and cognitive capabilities will have a tremendous impact on all business and on our personal lives. The trends discussed above are all part of a new computing platform that is emerging. You can bet that IBM will lead the industry as we move to that new platform.

Of course, there are many more trends to watch than just those listed above. To learn more about some of these trends, I have included a few resources below:

 

Bill Chamberlinis a Distinguished Market Intelligence Professional on IBM's Corporate Market Development & Insights team. He is also member of IBM's Academy of Technology leadership team. Bill leads IBM's internal HorizonWatch trend research program. The research helps business leaders understand and plan for emerging technologies and disruptive trends, including trends such as such as the Internet of Things, Analytics, and Cognitive Computing,

The last 14 years, Bill has devoted much of his time to helping IBMers understand potential futures. Bill performs research, analysis and reporting on emerging trends and business opportunities that will impact IBM in the future. Bill's expertise lies both in performing secondary and competitive emerging technology trends research as well as running consultative workshops for teams to help them translate insights into strategies and action plans. Bill founded IBM's HorizonWatch community. The internal IBM community focuses on understanding current and disruptive tech trends. Bill supports the community with a blog, conference calls, and annual trend reports. Bill blogs externally at http://www.billchamberlin.com/ and tweets at twitter.com/horizonwatching

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