HP: 2013 Technology Predictions

By Narinder Kapoor,  Vice President and Acting General Manager, HP Enterprise Group, South East Asia and Managing Director, Hewlett-Packard Malaysia.

During 2012 we witnessed how the rise of social media, demand for mobile services, consumerization of IT and shifting demographics has resulted in IT becoming an essential tool for productivity and collaboration. Consumers, citizens and employees now expect everything to be mobile, connected, interactive and immediate.

As the lines between professional and personal environments blur, users view their mobile computing devices as the new power tools, delivering powerful capabilities to create and connect. The trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), where employees bring to work devices they have purchased themselves, is here to stay. CIOs are challenged to protect corporate networks and information while allowing users to take advantage of the storage, content and processing power living in the cloud.

For organizations of all sizes in Malaysia today, gaining competitive advantage requires technology be at the forefront of innovation and growth. To address this we are seeing a move towards the following trends:

Big Data Gets Bigger:
Big data presents big opportunities—and challenges—for organizations today. The extreme volume, variety and velocity of information has placed unprecedented burdens on organizations. According to research conducted on behalf of HP, only 2 percent of business and technology executives said their organizations can deliver the right information at the right time to support the right business outcomes all of the time.
Legacy approaches to information management—which rely on outdated information architectures, infrastructure and analytics—fail to discover the concepts and value found in all forms of information. They are also incapable of cost-effectively scaling and processing the oceans of information collected in unstructured, structured and machine data in real time.

These shortcomings are especially evident in an age when changing customer sentiment plays out over [Twitter, YouTube], the web, phone calls and emails. In fact, Gartner predicts that big data will once again become 'just data' by 2020 and architectural approaches, infrastructure and hardware/software that does not adapt to this 'new normal' will be retired. According to Gartner, organizations resisting this change are likely to will suffer severe economic impacts .

In 2013, SMBs and large organizations across the region will continue to look for ways to manage and understand this flood of information to use it to their advantage.

Leading organizations will transition from storage systems that were designed for the needs of 20 years ago and have been upgraded over the years with bolt-on features. The new era of converged storage will provide a modern design approach built from the ground up for the needs of virtualization, cloud, and massive content pools.

In addition, sophisticated data analytics tools will enable organizations to better understand their customers and identify trends, make accurate forecasts and quickly adapt their businesses to respond to new opportunities.

Moving to the Converged Cloud:
We are at an inflection point where the delivery and consumption of, as well as the business model for technology are all being redefined. The way infrastructure is built, applications are developed, and information is delivered, is changing. On-premise, proprietary computing resources are gradually being complemented or replaced by the massive, agile and open computing resources of the cloud.

Hybrid models enable organizations to maximize their existing infrastructure and retain internal control while also being able to use public cloud resources where required. In fact, research commissioned by HP indicates that hybrid delivery will be critical to driving successful outcomes and innovation. By 2020, senior business and technology executives expect public and private cloud delivery models at their organizations to almost double.

In 2013 cloud computing will shift from delivering small, consumer-focused services to sustaining secure, predictable and reliable enterprise-scale workloads. Successful organizations will embrace converged cloud solutions that combine private, managed and public cloud environments with traditional IT infrastructure to deliver an experience built around a customer needs. This will enable organizations to harness the power of the cloud to deliver increased enterprise innovation, enhanced agility and improved financial management.

Mobility on Steroids
In 2013 the rollout of 4G, greater network coverage and higher international bandwidth will all drive mobile phone use across the region. According to IDC, shipments of worldwide smartphones in the third quarter of 2012 grew by 45.3% year-over-year to 179.7 million units  and Morgan Stanley predicts by 2014, mobile web users will surpass ‘traditional’ desktop Internet users.

With more people accessing the web through a mobile phone than through a computer, we can expect to see greater use of mobile devices to carry out transactions, pay bills, shop and interact with organizations.

Additionally, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon – where employees bring to work devices they have purchased themselves – will continue to gain momentum. Challenges exist over allowing employees to take advantage of powerful personal devices while ensuring control and security of company information and applications. However, the line between personal and business use of devices is now so blurred it’s becoming almost impossible to separate social and work use of devices and prevent people sharing information.

A well-defined, effective mobile strategy that addresses BYOD is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ for organizations, it’s essential to have a strategy that taps the productivity and growth potential of mobile devices used by employees, corporate customers and consumers. For many organizations in the region, challenges around infrastructure, liability, support and security are still rife and need to be addressed. In 2013, they will look for technology and solutions that create a safe environment to keep working practices secure while freeing staff to use whatever device suits them.

Protecting What Matters Most
Cloud, mobility and big data initiatives are helping organizations solve pressing challenges, while driving accelerated innovation, enhanced agility and improved financial management. However, these initiatives also can introduce big security concerns.

According to recent research conducted on behalf of HP in Asia Pacific and Japan, security issues around cloud services and big data are top of mind for more than two thirds of business and technology executives. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed are concerned about mobile data loss or theft. In addition, more than half of respondents admitted that their organizations spend more time and money on reactive measures than proactive risk management.

With 74 per cent of organizations in the region expecting a significant security breach within the next 24 months , a reactive, perimeter-based approach to security is no longer sufficient. Without a proactive information risk management strategy, enterprise growth, innovation and efficiencies are hindered.

In 2013 we’re likely to see more enterprises protect what matters most to their organizations by adopting intelligent security solutions that prioritize security resources to help identify threats earlier and enable a faster response time.