At the beginning of 2015 we saw some attention-grabbing predictions that suggested major changes were in the works in the ICT industry.
There have been some notable developments over the course of the year, but it will be interesting to see whether all of the predictions still hold water as we begin to look at 2016, says Martin Gunnarsson, director for product strategies and IFS at IFS.
Hybrid cloud is the future
Even though cloud computing and third party hosting will continue their rapid expansion, on-premises IT will remain a reality for 2015 and beyond, predicted Riverbed at the beginning of the year.
Gunnarsson says as cloud continues to play a bit-part role, many predict the hybrid setup will become an ever greater part of the ecosystem.
Gartner, for example, believes that hybrid enterprise resource planning (ERP) environments will be the norm within five years, and it looks like this will be the case as businesses look to mix third party solutions with their in-house cloud architectures, he adds.
Mark Walker, associate vice president at IDC Sub-Saharan Africa, notes the conversation around cloud has also shifted significantly.
"Corporations have moved away from asking what cloud is, to asking what it can do for them. While cloud adoption and preferences vary by region, this nascent technology is rapidly becoming a credible delivery model for IT services and software."
Globally, IDC predicts that cloud industry consolidation will result in six to eight major platforms by 2020.
This holds significant implications for Africa, where the major global cloud players have started establishing and bolstering their presence on the continent, says Walker.
Mobility is the new normal
IDC said mobility will drive digital engagement that integrates the benefits offered by cloud, big data initiatives, and social networking in 2015.
At the start of the year some predicted mobility would become a much more dominant factor within the business landscape, says Gunnarsson.
"While it is true that enterprise mobility is on the rise, we should not lose sight of the fact most of what we do and achieve is done at a desk."
The fact is that mobility really means more than just the device that fits in your pocket, says Gunnarsson, adding technology development means that bulky laptops are being replaced by powerful tablets.
Wearables surge
IDC revealed there will be an uptake of wearables this year. However, Gunnarsson says wearables adoption was underwhelming.
"It's an area where there has been disappointment in 2015 as it hasn't come true in the way many had hoped it would - Google Glass was arguably one of the highest profile wearable flops on the consumer market."
While it's still a very interesting avenue the scale simply hasn't happened in 2015, he adds.
Enterprise IOT gains
Deloitte predicted the surge of the Internet of things (IOT). It said 60% of all wireless IOT devices will be bought, paid for and used by enterprises and industries. And over 90% of the services revenue generated will be enterprise, not consumer.
On the other hand, Gartner said through 2018, there will be no dominant IOT ecosystem platform; IT leaders will still need to compose solutions from multiple providers.
"We're some way from seeing IOT in the mainstream. Industrial examples of IOT do crop up, though they are hardly commonplace - it's a slower game," says Gunnarsson.
This is largely because examples of IOT in the field tend to be unique solutions to a given challenge, and so standardisation is limited, he explains.
The benefits and techniques of IOT are not commonly understood and it is a broadly unproven technology, so it takes a far-sighted business to see how it could best use IOT, says Gunnarsson.
There's no doubting we're on course for more impressive developments within IT, and the next few years will be an exciting time to work in the industry, he adds.
"What will be interesting to see is what the 'next big thing' is and if, under scrutiny, predictions around it are actually likely to come true."
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