2013 Cloud Computing Outlook

By Shahin Pirooz, CTO and CSO, CenterBeam

CenterBeam forecasts 5 enterprise tech trends:  burgeoning BOYD, VPN extinction, Apps-as-a-Service, big data big headache, and BI & analytics “make it work”.

1. BYOD remains the biggest issue: The proliferation of employee-owned devices (BYOD) – specifically iPads and other tablet computers – in the enterprise, the challenges that IT departments face trying to identify and manage such a wide variety of endpoints, and the desire for employees to work from anywhere at any time has been the catalyst for the rampant demand on IT services and support within the enterprise.  As we move into 2013, we will continue to see BYOD as a hot topic (see recent LinkedIn poll).
   Smartphones are expected to outpace PC sales by 4:1 and tablet sales will match PC sales by 2016. This exacerbates the problem because employees are no longer accessing the network from a lone desktop computer.  IT managers are struggling to keep track of what type of and how many devices are using their network. CenterBeam estimates that mid-sized enterprises often underestimate how many mobile devices are accessing their networks by at least 50 percent.  While this is not a new problem, it is one that will become more challenging as we make the transition from PC to table/thin device.