Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2019
The time of year when crystal balls get a viewing and many pundits put out their annual predictions for the coming year. Copying off since 2012, rather than thinking up my own, I figured I’d regurgitate what many others expect to happen.
Gartner unveils top IOT trends – The 2015 Top 10, Top 10 was the first time we had IoT predictions on this list and every year it grows, as does the number connected devices. Billions, they say. Gartner says that IoT will enable new revenue streams and business models through 2023. They note that CIOs should ensure they have the necessary skills and partners to support key emerging IoT trends and technologies. As IoT grows, so do the ethical, moral, and legal ramifications including the ownership of data. And the buying and selling of IoT data will be an essential part of the systems. There will be new governance (see CA SB-327), sensor & chip innovation, along with new wireless technologies for these devices. 5G anyone?
Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019 – Gartner also unveiled their overall trends predictions. Keeping the IoT theme, autonomous everything like cars, drones, appliances, robotics, and anything to measure the air, water, land and digital will continue to grow. Not only the devices themselves but the data gathering capabilities. By 2020, they say, more than 40% of data science tasks will be automated (in many cases replacing the data gatherers too). Similarly, AI will be called on to process and analyze the vast amounts of data. They also include the dreaded ‘B’ word, blockchain, and while still immature, businesses should begin evaluating the technology, as it will create $3.1T in business value by 2030.
10 top technology trends to watch in 2019 – Another full-on tech trend from Information Management covers many of the same trends as Gartner. Areas like IoT, automation, AI, Virtual Reality, 5G, 3D printing, drones, biometrics, blockchain, and quantum computing. Our entire existence is becoming data-driven. Much is being gathered whether we like it or not so areas like privacy and confidentiality will also bubble up as our lives are digitally chronicled.
Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends For 2019 – Forbes also has its tech trends list for 2019. Daniel Newman notes that, ‘digital transformation is not only a technological shift, but an organizational change at the intersection of technology, business and people.’ Some of his current trends build upon his 2018 picks but some new ones also make the list. He says we’re finally in a spot where we’ll start seeing 5G everywhere, even though iPhone folks might need to wait ‘til 2020+. The continuing evolution of cloud shows that going all public, private, or data center isn’t the best option and organizations need a mix. He too explores AI, AR, blockchain and that chatbots, yes those, will shake up the entire service industry in ways we’ve never imagined due to improvements in natural language processing and sentiment analytics.
Cloud Trends 2019: Compliance, Security, and Hybrid Solutions – For some cloud-specific predictions, Intersog pulls some IDC numbers indicating that spending on cloud services and infrastructure will reach $160 billion by the end of 2018, a 23% increase from last year. By 2021, it could be in the $277 billion range. Manufacturing, professional services, and banking are the top spenders for public cloud. (Side note: Remember when financial services wouldn’t touch cloud?) These organizations will use the cloud to take advantage of IoT, big data, and analytics to enhance and optimize customer journeys and lower their operational expenses. As cloud services and solutions continue to grow, security and compliance remain essential, and hybrid clouds—a good middle ground—will help organizations make the move to cloud with reduced risk. They also feel that soon, quantum computing will revolutionize cloud services and solutions.
10 security trends to watch in 2019 – With so many breaches and unsecured S3 buckets, HPE offers not only trends but recommendations to beef up your InfoSec in 2019. Malware authors got more sophisticated disguising their crank as application updates and snuck in some crypto mining tools to boot. So, deploy tools to detect those exploits. They see new cloud security measures coming but the weakest link is still the end user. Continued employee training along with deploying multifactor authentication does help but leaving data exposed is still an issue. [Bonus Top 10: Leaky Buckets: 10 Worst Amazon S3 Breaches] And ever been locked out due to ransomware? Good backups are the key but also practicing recovery drills and examining the backups are critical.
The Future of DevOps: Predictions for 2019 – DevOps is (still) probably one of the most misunderstood ‘trends’ within IT. You can’t buy DevOps. It’s not a set of tools nor a job title. It’s a different way of thinking about how you continuously deploy and monitor your applications. Joyce Wells says as AI increases, data science folks will also adopt DevOps best practices for their management workflows. With more cloud, more serverless, and more DBaaS (database-aaS), DevOps will focus on the edge between services. This Edge focus is in a few lists this year. Functions-as-a-service will be in focus for those who have mastered operating containerized workloads. Automation remains key and continuous delivery approaches will expand. They will also be an enabler of seamless security integration as it becomes part of the software development cycle. Interestingly, she also says that container orchestration software will replace many of the traditional functions of DevOps.
12 Mobile App Development Trends to Watch Out for in 2019 – 12, 10, eh, who’s counting? Mobile used to mean our devices, where we were, and a carrier network. Now it encompasses many things like wearables, IoT, digital wallets, and on-demand apps. Beacons will be big with in the form of beacon-enabled airports, mobile payments beacons, and even automated personal beacons. Stuff like virtual guides and personal information sharing will use beacons to know where you are and what you want. They too talk about machine learning, AI along with chatbots. 2019 might be the year of the chatbot (again…?). Bet you never envisioned that.
5 Predictions for 2019: Business Value from Data – Protecting data, storing data, securing data. Information Week talked to Mike Gualtieri of Forrester Research who said, ‘People are realizing this idea of building one data lake is not going to happen,’ and about a quarter of organizations with data lakes will adopt data fabrics. He says the adoption of data fabrics is the needed next step for organizations that may be getting data from hundreds of enterprise applications. With all those sources, dashboards will need to be cut in half and the reports generated need to have value to the org. Info they can act on. While we have data scientists, it’ll be the data storytellers that excel. Those who can deliver analytics with emotion will influence decision making through Data Story Arcs.
21 People Cast Their Most Ominous, Creative Predictions For 2019 – The Cheezburger FailBlog lets society choose what’s ahead for 2019 (including that Avengers 4 will completely reverse everything that happened in Infinity War). Also, we’ll soon get Facebook Bank for more data collection; The Rock will run for President (got my vote); people will continue to write 2018 on their checks well into March; and Meat Loaf will make a huge comeback. Not sure of that’s the artist or the entre.
Added Bonus: I Found the Best Burger Place in America. And Then I Killed It is a fascinating look at the influence of lists in modern society.
To close, 2019 is the Year of the Pig. Are you ready?! I still can’t believe it’s (mid-)December…
Interested to see if any of the previous year’s prognoses came true?