Top 5 predictions for 2013: S Janakiraman

BANGALORE, INDIA: Mindtree president & CTO S Janakiraman lists out his top five predictions for the new year, 2013.

1. Desktop is dead; Laptop under threat - xPad will become the way of life at office and home:

As Gen Y is getting more and more omfortable with touch devices and corporates are adapting to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, tablets will become the computing, communicating and entertainment device for majority of work force. 'Desk top' is already dead and 'lap top' is losing its charm as the need for key board (the only benefit) vanishing and with the ever increasing solid state memory size, which is not limiting storage capacity.

Moreover, with most of the data getting stored in cloud, both private and public, and as 3G/ LTE is picking up momentum through drop in prices, the popularity of tablets will be unstoppable. Though not a specific trend yet, I believe phones will pair with pads and the need for 'smart phone' will vanish. Phone may become primarily a device for voice once again, while Pads will serve the data needs.

2. Centralized - Decentralized - Again recentralized - Cloud Computing the way of delivering IT Solution:

'Main frame' era is bygone in the last decade with the emergence of client server and personal computers and IT got decentralized. Cloud computing will recentralize compute power with big data centers acting as utilities and as consumers start tapping them. Like Television is incidental and content (through channels) has become the king, hardware and software will become incidental and information and data will become the key for end consumers.

Pay per use will become the mantra and we will start looking at cloud for everything to do with IT. Private cloud will be the reality in larger enterprises until they are able to build confidence on public cloud, which will be first adapted by SMBs and individual consumers.

3. Closed Source - Open source - All Source - Software will be rented and not owned:

Proprietary applications were under threat with the open source (OS) movement, but OS did not pick up momentum due to lack of ownership and uncertainty on road map. Moreover, the fear of strings attached in usage still remains a grey area even for knowledgeable users. With applications getting componentized and App Stores picking up momentum, many of the commonly used applications can be tapped from App Stores of multiple vendors. Thus, user is liberated from building applications from scratch or paying high licensing fee and AMCs for upgrades.

With social networks and user rating, the user is made aware of the strengths and issues with such apps available and have the choice to decide which app to tap into.

4. You chased Information - Now Information will chase you:

Gone are the days where information was either inaccessible or costly to access. Think of anything, and you can google it today. The trouble has shifted from lack of information to enormity of information. Sentiment Analysis is becoming important for provider to understand the user needs and feed in the right information. Data Analytics is becoming important for the user to make sense out of Big Data that one has access to.

Analyzing Big Data, making sense, and taking appropriate decisions will become critical for the success of enterprises, especially those touch common man such as retail, banking and telecom industries.

5. Stay healthy - Medical and wellness Devices will reach the middle class:

With increasing consciousness on health, decreasing prices of medical and wellness devices and innovations in medical electronics, middle class will invest more and more in such devices for personal healthcare. Today devices such as blood gluco meter, blood pressure meter, blood oxymeter, heart rate meter and pado meters can be found in many a homes and most of the times we find two or more devices combined into one at an affordable price.

With sensor networks and connected devices, the health parameters will get captured by home computers and transmitted to central health care to track the health of individuals and provide timely advise.

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