Top technology trends of 2014

BANGALORE, INDIA: Technology today is truly driven by innovations which are in turn inspired by dynamics of competition, its applicability to everyday life and winning attitude along. If we turn a leaf back to peek into the history, we can see technology has always evolved at a phenomenal pace and has changed the way we live today. But technology during the recent years has grown more disruptive, with results even more interesting due to rapid convergence of different platforms.

In 2014, trends in technology landscape will revolve around this disruptive theme which broadly entails analytics, social media, mobile and cloud computing. Research and analyst firm Gartner names them as 'nexus of forces' and expects them to be worth $104 billion, contributing one fourth of business software revenue by 2017, up from about 10% at present. Thus, convergence of these technology platforms is about to open a sea of opportunities for enterprises.

Some of the key technology trends to look for in 2014 based on above theme are:

Big Data Analytics - Big Data Analytics will continue to impregnate all facets of business. Businesses across the world will devote more resources to carry due diligence for big data projects and will focus on implementing better data management practices to leverage identified tools.

Cloud Analytics - With more and more data being stored on cloud, businesses now envision to produce analytical reports on the fly using web browsers and mobile devices. This will enable them to save time and cost by harnessing higher velocity, semantics networks and flexible architecture of cloud.

In-memory Database Management Applications - Data exploration, analysis and sharing will find its way in In-memory database management systems in coming year. In-memory option will accelerate database performance, speed and response time which would make it ideal for analytics reporting in mission critical applications.

Predictive Analysis and Forecasting - It will become a new norm or foundation of business planning particularly in the areas of demand and inventory planning, budgeting, sales quotas, marketing campaigns and procurement activities. By using customer analytics on the other hand, businesses will leverage this trend to maintain consumer satisfaction, loyalty and minimum attrition.

Social Collaboration - It will evolve in various forms due to the shifting focus of businesses on Social Media and the way people network today. Mobile will play a key role in its evolution because of its significant influence on the users and readiness of ecosystem.

Augmented Reality - As visual analytics continues to grow, augmented reality will play a key role in larger adoption of this trend. The readiness of these applications will be based on collaboration of real-time and semantic context of visual elements with analytics led by enhanced user experience and interactivity.

Gamification - It has emerged as a potential tool to boost loyalty and product engagement across categories, including fitness, e-commerce and technology. The market for Gamification apps and services will reach about half a billion dollars this year, according to M2, and will rise to $2.8 billion by 2016.

Internet of things - The trend by which most of our devices will become internet-connected and manageable in real-time is estimates to be a multi-trillion dollar business where electronic makers will sell "smart" devices like Internet-operated light switches, weather-aware fridges or self-driven cars like the ones showcased at CES 2014 in Las Vegas recently.

Hence, this coming year, technology will be about the convergence of different platforms, analytics and connected "things" which in result will open new possibilities for businesses to win over the conventional ways of doing business.

(The author is head of advanced technologies group at Blue Star Infotech)