100 Business View - January 2015
Strategic Technology Trends
The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2015, according to Forbes.com.
Rank Trend
Summary
1
Computing Everywhere
2
The Internet of Things
3
3D Printing
4
Advanced, Pervasive,
Invisible Analytics
5
Context-Rich Systems
6
Smart Machines
7
Cloud/Client Architecture
8
Software-Defined
Infrastructure and
Applications
As smart-phone technology advances, smart-phones will be used in new
contexts and environments. Along with wearables, smart-phones will of-
fer connected screens in the workplace and in public. User experience
will be key.
The Internet of Things is big and it will continue to grow along with user-
oriented computing. Prediction: The Internet of Things will be the focus
of digital business products and processes in industrial and operational
contexts. Expect technology to be embedded everywhere.
3D printing is about to get cheaper, and its market will grow over the next
three years. The expansion will be biggest in industrial, biomedical, and
consumer applications helping companies reduce costs.
Analytics will continue to grow propelled by the Internet of Things, creat-
ing large pools of data. Every app will need to be an analytic app. But big
data isn’t the most important thing: instead we’ll need big questions and
big answers.
Thanks to embedded intelligence and analytics, systems will become
alert and responsive to their surroundings. Expect context-aware security
as well as other trends.
Analytics and context will pave the way for smart machines that can learn
for themselves and act accordingly. These machine helpers will continue
to evolve. Prediction: The smart machines era will be the most disruptive
in the history of IT.
As mobile computing meets cloud computing, centrally coordinated ap-
plications that can be delivered to any device will continue to grow. Apps
that can use intelligence and storage effectively will see lower bandwidth
costs. Expect to be able to use applications simultaneously on multiple
devices.
Software defined networking, storage, data centers and security are ma-
turing. Cloud service software is configurable thanks to rich APIs. Com-
puting will have to move away from static models to deal with the chang-
ing demands of digital business.
INFRASTRUCTURE
