Published on the 05/12/2016 | Written by Donovan Jackson
It’s that time of year again, so ready yourself for the prognostications of, well, everyone…
The IT industry can be a funny old thing for the people working in it. For many of us, it is something of a ‘groundhog day’, where progress can seem terribly slow for what seems like ages, when all of a sudden the things we’ve been hyping up and harping on about pop into fully-formed existence. And although concepts and ideas often get into the ‘talked about’ phase long before they are mature enough to be of any use, the predictions of the tech industry generally do come true. They just do so in their own sweet time, rather than at the bidding of the players.
In any event, with a jolly-cheeked fat man on the horizon, it’s again time to take in the anticipations for what the notoriously unpredictable IT industry is likely to serve up in 2017. We’ve received a few already from systems integrator Dimension Data, security vendor Symantec and network gear maker Brocade. We’ll just go ahead and say it here: most of the crystal ball gazing anticipates a bit more of the same. But better, faster and more.
To Dimension Data, first. Top of its pops, is more digital. CTO Ettienne Reinecke said digital is about building truly customer-centric business models on IT including the network, data centre, applications, and other infrastructure – which may be on-premises, or cloud-based. “Today, there’s no such thing as a digital strategy – just strategy in a digital world. And while the digital age is creating a degree of uncertainty for some organisations, it’s also opening the doors to exciting possibilities and ushering in an era of infinite potential.”
No surprises there, then. Other trends that DD is talking up include intelligence in cybersecurity, embedded machines (augmented reality, holographics), IoT and big data, and container technology.
In addition to some ‘storage networking-centric’ anticipations, Brocade’s ANZ director Jason Baden tapped vehicular networking as something to watch next year. He said a ‘new normal will begin to emerge for networked cars. Opportunities to improve vehicle maintenance and driver convenience are already being explored by carmakers, but the real opportunities are only just beginning to become apparent. In the coming year, users will begin to realise the promise of being able to connect their cars and homes, to share telemetry and driving conditions with nearby vehicles, and integrate more fully with the driver’s IT experience – safely integrating personal calendars, messaging apps, etc, into the driving experience.’
You’ll probably need a MY17 car for that. Baden also has anticipations for the IoT and VR/AR; he expects 2017 will see the ‘Normalisation of things’ (yes, Io Things) driven by standards; and tapped machine learning which he said will be applied to problems previously thought to be impractical to solve. Networking problems, in this case. He described 2016 as apparently the break-out year for AR and VR, and said “In 2017 we can expect to see these systems focused primarily on entertainment and education. But as the platforms become more established, toward mid to late 2017, we can expect to see experimental applications in communications, data visualisation, and enterprise situational awareness.”
In addition to the usual Chicken Little stuff about the sky falling in and the world continuing its inevitable slide off its axis owing to the fundamental insecurity of all things, Symantec anticipates ‘A NEW ERA OF CYBERCRIME’. Sounds exciting: it reckons 2017 will see connected cars taken for ransom (MY ‘17, we presume – stay safe with your old banger), (presumably consumer, unlike these professional beasts) drones being used for espionage and explosive attacks, while rogue nation states will finance themselves by stealing money online.
Makes one hanker for the Mob of the old days. There’s something more honest about a Tommy gun. In any event, our prediction for 2017 is that the industry will chug along as it does, with major breakthroughs being few and far between as most organisations get on with work while continuing to seek out efficiency gains through increased digitisation. What’s yours?
