Top 5 IT trends for 2012

Innovation is the driving force behind the advances we see in society, and 2012 is shaping up to be one of the more innovative years of the last decade. With new technologies slowly infiltrating our lives, it’ll be interesting to see which companies are the true movers and shakers. Obviously Apple are at the cusp of this activity, but Amazon, HP, Microsoft and others are beginning to adopt a more innovative approach and are definitely going to challenge Apple this year.

There are perhaps twenty or more IT trends that I could feature in this article – an example of a trend I have left out is the use of flash memory in computers – but I’ve tried to focus more on innovative ideas rather than new uses of old technology. Here are what I believe are the top 5 trends for IT in 2012:

1) Tablet computing:

There’s no doubt that this is going to be a huge year for Tablet computing. With Amazon coming into the market, Apple continually updating their iPad and Microsoft designing their next OS for the Tablet world it’s obvious that the top technology companies realize that Tablets are eventually going to end the world’s use of laptops and desktops.

Microsoft, who have dominated the OS wars for years are beginning to realize that Andorid and Apple arestreets ahead of them and it remains to be seen how well Windows 8 will be received. Experts believe that by 2015, 50% of the world’s computers will be Tablets. The PC dominance in the home and office is coming to an end, and we’ll begin to see this shift during 2012 as the world becomes more reliant on mobile media and tablet computers.

2) Applications:

Yet again Apple are at the forefront of innovation and have really set the software world alight with their app store. Google and Amazon have jumped on this band wagon and Microsoft are slowly getting into gear. With the advent of the Tablet and the growing use of Tablets, application software is slowly going to become the dominant force in the software world and again Microsoft and other large software corporations will have to adapt quickly or be left for dead.

Experts estimate that over 50 billion mobile apps will be purchased a year, and this will increase as software companies move away from traditional methods of selling and retailing – it remains to be seen if this is a good development or not, as quality seems to be marginalized to a certain extent.

3) Social media:

Web 2.0 is alive and kicking and is delivering more social-centric websites than any other type of website. With the incorporation of social media, entertainment, games and apps the social web sites will continue to dominate the online experience; this is especially true with the emergence of the Tablet that makes the use of Twitter, Facebook etc so easy and instant. We are going to see a transition starting in 2012 that will make the social experience more contextual and tailored to the individual – Goolge, Microsoft, Apple and Nokia are pushing the boundaries of this and trying to make the internet and social media the foundation of the new technology era.

4) Cloud computing:

This has recently taken a bit of a hit after major companies have had problems with their clouds, but there’s no doubt that Cloud computing will feature heavily this year especially as companies like Amazon push their tablets to consumers and incorporate ‘online’ storage in the cloud. This is going to transition into the corporate world and change the way we all work. The days of all going to the office and working will soon be gone, and Cloud computing could be one of the most important factors in the race to reduce the carbon footprint of the corporate world – with these innovations and better communications the number of people working at home will steadily increase.

5) Convergence:

The days of having dozens of different gadgets to do different things is slowly disappearing. The modern gadget is converging – you’ll have a TV that allows you to control your heating, surf the web, secure your house – you’ll be able to control this from your mobile devise at work;

Again Apple are at the forefront of this technology and their soon to be released LCD TV will probably incorporate many of these converging features. One day, and I don’t see it being too far off, you’ll see intelligent devices that are all linked together in a global network – it’s the way of the future but also with the security issues we already have, it’s a very scary future.

Technology has become a major part of everyday life and I often wonder if the pace of innovation is too fast. Do we really want our lives to be controlled by technology. Soon, every aspect of our lives will be touched by technology and if the underlying ‘back bone’ is flawed then the danger is there is a potential for a massive failure of the system that could lead to huge disruptions to modern life.

Having said that, it is an exciting time for the average geek, and I for one will be very interested in the IT trends for 2012.