By Phoebe Magdirila & Rafael Mejia
February 1, 2012

Rapidly evolving technology calls for an IT industry to be always on its toes to easily spot the next big thing to hit the market. Now that the most modern of technologies are not limited to corporate companies and have found their way to small end users who have managed to incorporate technology into their everyday lives, it is only fitting that IT companies compete with each other to deliver the latest innovation that they can offer the public. Today, any company, regardless of size, has depended on their IT teams as if it were the life and blood of their operations. It is also amazing how used-to-be personal use of social networking sites has slowly drifted to marketing products and brands, giving more opportunities for businesses to make their products known and giving birth to the digital marketers.

The evolution of technology over the past year has led to a big expectation on up and coming trends that will come to aid the burgeoning complexity in IT organizations’ systems today. ComputerWorld Philippines finds out what IT industry insiders foresee to be the next big thing.

1 The Silver Lining of Cloud Computing.
The cloud and cloud-based technologies ranked second in last year’s forecast, but this year, after it has been considered the buzzword in the IT industry, we’re seeing the cloud on the top of the list—and for good reason. It is true that any company needing efficient and vast storage will benefit from the cttloud, but the convenience of the cloud is not only for big companies as individuals can also harness its power.
Industry insiders see that cloud will revolutionize the way how companies run their business, mostly banking on flexibility and convenience.

Oracle Vice President for Applications and Systems, Leng Tan, acknowledges that many companies are starting to implement their own cloud, beginning to understand more of its key components, and expecting to utilize the agility cloud computing offers.

Hewlett-Packard Manager for Worldwide Technical Marketing in HP Networking, Eric Papir, understands that agility is a major factor with cloud computing and notes that it is a big expectation of the technology. “The Cloud technology will allow businesses to be agile,” Papir relates. “It will force IT to think a bit differently.” Some companies have a clear vision for utilizing the cloud technology. For example, Kaspersky Senior Director of Product Marketing, Peter Beardmore, relates in the coming year, they will be harnessing the power gained from the cloud. “By enabling our corporate products with cloud-based intelligence, we are essentially reducing our time to protect clients from what was about an hour, when we first identified a new threat, down to forty seconds due to a lot of cloud-enabled technologies,” Beardmore explains. And although the said technology will be useful in a vast company, Power Mac Center Marketing Manager Joey Alvarez notes that individuals can also experience all the convenience the cloud can offer, citing Apple’s iCloud as an example. “I’m very interested with how the iCloud will change the way we do things,” relates Alvarez. “For example, as an individual, I can save my files at the iCloud and wherever I am, I can easily access my files. No need to bring huge files with me all the time. I think everybody will try to see how that will go.

2 Increase in Malware;
Implementation of Stricter Data Security Policies Beardmore shares that the recent US Gartner Security Conference, attended by CIOs and industry experts, application control and white listing were the top topics of interest, which is understandable as it is easier for companies “to control what applications are running on the network and the resources on the system those applications have access to” via white listing, than combating each and every malware that penetrates the system. “If our vulnerabilities are ever exploited, we can really mitigate those attacks, those exploits and mitigate the damage that may have been found or might be done. And we can do that with our application control functionality,” Beardmore mentions Kaspersky’s application control feature in their products.

Meanwhile, Sophos Regional SalesDirector, Ogie Tabor warns about the increase of the already swarming malware for PC users and the onset of increasing malwares for Mac, noting that in the coming year, we best guard our systems stricter as malwares “will surely be in multiple platforms.”

Tabor cites the Android platform as a platform of concern because of its open architecture. “You can connect on non-Android market place or third-party sites and end up downloading malware,” reveals Tabor. “For iPhones, it’s still a bit secure unless you jailbreak it which will open you to vulnerability.”

Sophos, which is in the business of providing security for mobile platforms, mentions that the Data Leakage Protection (DLP) functionality in their products will safeguard you against data-harvesting malware.

3 The Growing Advantage of System Management
Data continues to be a corporate asset. However, with the growth of data sprung from different divisions of a company, managing these to work as a competitive edge for an enterprise is a challenge. Oracle believes that what’s important is the quality of service that a company provides to its end users, more than what the IT teams see. To fully manage data that has been sprawling somewhere in company databases, Oracle sees that a system management tool is now one of the most crucial solutions to be implemented in businesses. “The whole goal is to simplify IT management,” explains Tan. “Having a good system management is very important.” Telecommunications company Globe Telecom, likewise, sees how this can aid enterprises today. After launching machine to- machine (M2M) solutions for enterprises early this year, Globe Business Head, Jesus Romero, saw how Fixed Asset Management has been gaining a lot of interest from local enterprises. As part of Globe’s M2M portfolio, Fixed Asset Management, is a purposely built solution for enterprises that allows companies to monitor operations by receiving SMS and e-mail notifications about sudden changes in temperature and threshold levels in operations

4 Syncing More Corporate
Applications into Mobile Devices From the availability of data-enabled smart phones and tablets, industry leaders also believe that the trend of mobility is not going anytime soon. More importantly now, these devices do not only represent an individual’s lifestyle but also a way of how they manage their work.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry has gained approval from business executives for allowing them to work and be updated with what’s happening in the operations, wherever they are through its push service. Now more and more devices have become a corporate partner that enables to do business wherever. Papir quotes Gartner that 90% of corporate applications will be in mobile devices in the coming year. “It’s also all about consolidation of IT resources,” he says. Storage manufacturer Seagate also sees this trend moving forward to the next year. “There will be more mobile computing devices that will emerge,” says Seagate Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Sales & Marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan, Banseng Teh. As part of the storage industry, he believes that they have to continue to be competitive to keep up with the trends. “The storage industry will have to answer the growing demands for mobility,” he says. Seagate recently launched GoFlex Satellite, a wireless hard disk drive that can stream files, music and even videos to your iPad, smart phones, and other mobility devices.

Possibly Related Posts:

• IT Budgets on the Rise
• Veering into Virtualization
• BUSINESS AS USUAL: Picking up where you left
• IT Outsourcing Reaching Out to Reach Further
• Social Business

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