In the year of Brexit and Trump, Chris Gabriel, Chief Digital Officer for Logicalis Europe predicts that electronic digital crime will explode, data privacy breaches will claim scalps, automation will be 2017’s buzzword and the open source movement will challenge profit-making business models in his 2017 tech predictions.
It’s the time of year to engage in the oh-so risky game of making predictions for what is going to be hot for our customers in the coming year. Risky, because stunning twists and turns can take us off course at any point.
After the Brexit referendum and US Elections results confounded political and polling pundits, life’s certainties appear far less certain. Suddenly identifying the big winners in 2017 seems a less straight forward affair. But as a person that doesn’t mind living life on the edge – I thought I’d take a punt anyway. Here are my top tech predictions for 2017.
Security Breaches – the worst is yet to come
Based on the number of high profile data breaches, 2016 hasn’t been a great year for digital. The stable door has been left open by companies and government departments around the world. Armies of Terminator 2 Cyborgs in the guise of home CCTV cameras are attacking the very infrastructure of the internet. I fear we’re only at the beginning of an escalation of electronic digital crime.
2017 will test the nerve of governments, businesses, citizens and consumers and challenge the perception of digital as a safe and secure way of doing business, unless there's a massive investment in Fort Knox equivalent defences and white hat skills.
Data Privacy
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) emanating from Europe is going to hurt businesses who don’t take data privacy seriously. That is a problem, as evidence suggests companies are unaware of their obligations under this new punitive legislative regime and are taking too long to grab hold of the GDPR tail. It's highly possible fines of up to 4% of Global Turnover will take some companies out of business in 2017, and beyond.
One Small Change for Mankind, One Giant Leap Forward for Automation
The IT industry is about to enter a time of mass automation…..about time. To our shame, we’ve lagged behind other industries. You can now buy a car that can park itself with the touch of a button, but you need 24 buttons to change the configuration of a router. Increased levels of automation will manifest itself in robotic decision making, the automation of security systems to guard against, and respond to an avalanche of security threats, and automated provisioning of resource in the data centre and network (Software Defined).
Things Can Only Get Bigger
The Internet of Things is going to get bigger and more impactful. Gartner Group is still predicting that by 2020 there will be 50 billion things connected to the internet - that’s only three years away. In 2017, expect to see mass engagement by businesses in all sectors. Hopefully we’ll move on from talking about the connected fridge that can order more lettuce when you run out, and recognise that IoT will fundamentally change how industries and organisations operate.
Open Source – Somebody wants to do everything you do for free
Somebody, somewhere, is trying to do what you charge for, at much lower cost, or even for free. Open isn’t a thing, it’s a movement. We’re already seeing Open Source technologies impact our industry; with Open Stack being the new operating system of choice for those companies not wanting to ‘pay’ for mainstream software. Open technologies in automation, such as Puppet and Chef, now have a groundswell of support, and are evangelical about companies who want to delight people rather than turn a profit. We've also witnessed a growing willingness to embrace Open Computing technologies. Now, Open isn’t without its complications and ultimately nothing in life is free – operating an open environment is still a complicated affair. But I think we'll see a lot more traction, with many of our customers taking Open Source seriously, over the next 12 months.
2017 Tech predictions - a risky game
So, those are my top five tech trends for 2017. Now you’re probably decrying – how could I overlook analytics? I haven’t. I fully acknowledge that analytics and data are core to all the above. They will need to be embedded in the very fabric of a business, to bring my predictions to fruition. Otherwise, you can disregard everything I just said. As I said, making predictions is a risky game.