Verizon's top 5 business tech trends for 2013

MUMBAI, INDIA: Hybrid Cloud, Connected Machines, Mobility, Intelligent Networks and Security will top among the business technology trends in 2013 for enterprises, according to communication giant Verizon.

Hybrid Clouds: In the 2013, according to Verizon, there will be a significant shift from VPNs to public, private and hybrid clouds. ''With the globalization and cloud coming of age, we see more hybrid clouds emerging out and leveraging the traditional VPNs,'' said John Samuel, president - Verizon India. Quoting a Gartner report, Samuel pointed that over 60 per cent of all enterprises will have adopted some form of cloud computing by 2013.

Mobility: According to Samuel, mobility is becoming a majority and is giving freedom or independence to users. Around 66 per cent employees now use two or more mobiles devices for work, says a Forrester study. Highlighting the growing mobility aspect among work-force, Verizon points that companies will increasingly adopt cloud-based enterprise mobility strategies like personal clouds for employees allowing use of enterprise applications for work purpose.

Connected Machines: Connected machines or machine-to-machines (M2M) is expanding its area beyond smart energy delivery and smart cars. Verizon predicts that in 2013, the adoption of connected machines will see dramatic growth in retail, finance and manufacturing sectors. This trend post the Hughes Telematics' acquisition opens up more opportunities for Verizon. ''M2M is here to stay and we see opportunity beyond the automotives and manufacturing,'' said Samuel.

Intelligent Networks: "Networks will be smarter now than before with high resiliency and reliability with a shift in 2013 towards more dynamic networks, pervasive IP Connections and purpose-built networks that serve businesses, consumers and society,'' pointed Samuel. An intelligent fabric that links everything and everyone will render underlying networks invisible to end users, even as overall IP traffic grows at a compound annual 29 per cent growth through 2016, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.

Security: In 2013, security will move out of the specialist realm and become a mainstream IT must-have, according to Verizon. ''We see that security will be across and move out from the area of the specialist and will become more of a standard or a prerequisite norm in 2013,'' said Samuel.