Top trends for 2013: Rahul Arora

BANGALORE, INDIA: Rahul Arora, country manager, India Akamai Technologies lists out his top trends for 2013.

While, Mobile, Cloud, Security, Big Data and Analytics are going to be the big trends in 2013, the first three are going to the biggest amongst them.

Mobile:

Mobile is probably biggest trend in 2013 for India. More than half of the Internet users in India will use their mobile phones to access the Web in the next couple of years. Fixed broadband penetration is projected to remain relatively low. All of this new mobile connectivity will mean an ever-larger group of people will be able to access the Web.

According to eMarketer projections, the number of mobile Internet users in India will grow by total 84.6 million in 2012, growing to 184.7 million in 2016, a figure equal to 14.6 per cent of the country¹s population. As many devices will now be connecting to the Internet, this will add a lot of complexities on how Web and applications are going to be delivered.

Cloud Adoption:

The changing role of IT departments demands they play a bigger part in coordinating IT related activities. Next year, there will be a big shift from VPNs to public, private and hybrid clouds. Majority of enterprises will take up cloud computing in one form or another by next year. I am also seeing companies being proactive in tackling the challenges associated with dealing with the division of employees' personal and professional lives, by using mobile-device management and private application storefronts to create a more secure, mobile work environment.

Web and Application Security:

I see Web and Application Security being a mainstream IT must-have. Companies will be focusing to protect every device and everything connected to the Internet.