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Technology to Consider in 2010
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Date published: February 26, 2010
The world of technology never stops evolving and with each year brings with it the latest trends. Last year's business technology trends included netbook adoption, new mobile phone solutions, boosts in online storage use and the expansion of video conference solutions. This year will no doubt bring interesting technology to monitor, as well. Here are ten technical trends that should be seriously considered by IT professionals at small to mid-sized firms in 2010. The technologies mentioned below will impact the company’s long-term plans, initiatives and programs and bring advantage from early adoption, and therefore can be considered highly strategic.Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has evolved enough to offer at least three different options, which use the cloud as a source of computing infrastructure; on-demand applications, internal cloud for delivering services within a company and cloud operating systems, like eyeOS, that can be used by organizations, as well as, individuals. This leaves IT professionals a lot of choice and different types of cloud computing to consider.
Cloud computing was named the most strategic 2010 business technology trend by analyst company, Gartner, and Microsoft is expecting a huge rise of interest in cloud computing among small and medium-sized businesses. “We feel interest and adoption of cloud computing among small and mid-size businesses will really take off in 2010,” says Christoph Wilfert, corporate vice president and general manager for Microsoft’s small and mid-market business solutions in the United States. Christoph goes on to sate that, “Our research and conversations with SMBs show they are very interested in cloud computing, but are not yet fully aware how easy it is to employ the technology, its widespread availability and full benefits.”
Desktop Virtualization
Virtualization has been on the list of top technologies in previous years, but in 2010 more and more small and medium-sized businesses are considering using it as a standard recovery and availability solution. The most common use for desktop virtualization is remote administration, where the controlling computer works in almost the same way as on a duplicate desktop. The only difference is that the actions of the controlling computer will be almost unnoticeable on the remote computer display. However, its another major use is spreading the resources of one machine to several users. Very often it is cheaper to buy one large computer or server and several thin clients than purchasing a complete computer for each workstation.
The obvious benefit of virtualization is that if the destination VM were to fail, new destination could be picked to start the indefinite migration, which will make very high availability possible. This will help to cut costs and simplify IT support. The idea of desktop visualization is also leading to considering thin clients as cheaper alternative to PCs.
Microsoft Upgrades
The release of Microsoft Windows 7 was the major technology event of 2009. The new operating system is still to be considered by many businesses who haven't upgraded from Windows XP yet. In addition to that, Microsoft has prepared some big updates for the year 2010. This year will see the launch of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010.
Microsoft Office 2010 will offer a promising new concept of Office Web Apps - lightweight online versions of Word, Excel, OneNote, and PowerPoint easily accessible via a Web browser. These features are going to be available to small and mid-size businesses either at low cost or for free. All things considered, with the début of Exchange 2010 in late 2009, IT managers have four big Microsoft upgrades to look forward to.
Biometric Authentication
As they continue to improve, biometric authentication systems are becoming increasingly indispensable for protecting life and property. There are several biometric authentication techniques, including fingerprints, palmprints, iris scans, and voice identification. In 2009 large banks adopted voiceprints as their preferred method of customer authentication for phone banking and general customer service inquiries. The use of voiceprints improves security and combined with the use of other means of biometric authentication could become a top security measure for financial services organizations. Many call centers have been researching voice authentication techniques and are ready to implement the use of this technology in 2010.
WAN Acceleration
WAN acceleration is thought to be one of the best kept secrets in the IT and business worlds, which is bound to change. WAN acceleration appliances and software can help businesses minimize bandwidth costs by caching big files and often-used documents. It can also help branch offices and remote workers to achieve far better performance when using business applications. Some companies partner with major SaaS providers to take WAN acceleration one step further and use it to speed up hosted cloud applications. All of this makes WAN acceleration one of the most promising IT projects in business, as it can offer fast ROI and immediate increase in productivity.
SSD Drives
Storage still remains a huge industry and is crucial for business efficiency. These days the storage industry is moving towards solid state disks drive, which use flash memory instead of magnetic spinning disks. The SSD technology is becoming a new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers. Solid state drives are smaller, faster, cooler and, most importantly, more reliable. Having no mechanical parts makes solid state drives immune to physical vibration, shock, and extreme temperatures. They also use less power than conventional hard disks and do not have to be defragmented, which means applications can be sped up without increasing the electricity bills and the need for new servers.
SSD drives are still expensive compared to conventional hard disks, but at the rate of price declines, this new storage option will soon see more than a 100 percent compound annual growth rate and will become strategic in various IT areas. They will include consumer devices, corporate data storage, entertainment equipment, and other embedded IT systems.
Enterprise Social NetworksSocial networks will continue growing in 2010. Moreover, they will spread further in the workplace and take collaboration to a totally new level. As professional and personal communication is blending into one, IT managers will have to incorporate enterprise social networking into their communications and collaboration strategy.
There are already some social networking websites designed specifically for use within a company, so enterprise-level versions of Facebook and Twitter will become as common as email. This new approach to inter-company communication is bound to have a positive impact on the way business is conducted, decision making will speed up, customers will receive immediate answers to their queries and workers will have access to real-time project information.
Hybrid Servers
In 2009, one of the major transactions in the IT world was Oracle's acquisition of Sun. Oracle has been experimenting with all-in-one packs that include a server, storage and other features that are needed to run business applications and is said to be interested in extending Sun's work in the same space. Hewlett-Packard is going down the same road and is working to make its storage arrays more similar to it servers, which will make them both cheaper to manufacture. This behavior clearly demonstrates that hybrid servers are the new trend and data center hardware is going to start looking similar.
Mobile Applications
By the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets that will be capable to run applications that will provide a rich environment for combining mobility and the Web. There are already many thousands of applications for platforms such as Apple iPhone and Google Android despite the limited usability and, as a consequence, a limited market. It will take newer versions of software to flexibly operate on both full PC and miniature systems, but once developed, these applications would create a significant turn towards mobile computing for business. More companies will deploy mobile applications in a structured, secure environment to help businesses increase productivity and innovation.
Most organizations have a tendency to have numerous security product installed on their systems, which include firewalls, various threat management devices, and intrusion protection tools. All of this is helping to build a multi-layered defense. However, modern firewalls and other software can provide better security and take over some functions of other security appliances. This is especially useful for enterprises that want to consolidate their security infrastructure.
Another thing to be considered is “360 Security”. This approach is fast becoming a widely used term as businesses and government agencies apply total security solutions across the cloud, the their networks and specific devices.
Conclusion
As this year is promising economic recovery and growth, some economic threats remain. That is why it is crucial for small and mid-size businesses to identify the new technologies that are the most strategically relevant to their business and to start actively implementing them. Innovation is where smaller companies potentially have an advantage over larger enterprises, because the use of new technology will not only help them cut their cost and protect their data better, but will also help them gain more customers, who are always eager to try out new things.
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