Tag: IT Trends

IT Resolutions for 2015

    Jim D

While there is still one bowl game left to be played and confetti to clean up, 2014 is now done and leaves a mixed IT legacy.  After 2013’s issues with the NSA leaks, the Healthcare.gov mishaps, and the 40 million credit identities stolen from Target, 2014 did not turn out much better on security and availability. Home Depot, eBay, JPMC all had major incidents in the ‘year of the hacks‘. Add to that the celebrity photo leaks from the Apple hacks. Add to that of course the Sony uber-hack and their playstation service failure at Christmas. All in all, 2014 was quite a dismal year for IT security. On the positive side, we saw continued advances in smart technology, from phones to cars. Robots and drones are seeing major reductions in price while leapfrogging in usability and capability. So, technology’s potential seems brighter than ever, yet we still underachieve in our ability to prevent its mis-use. Now 2015 is upon us and I have compiled some IT resolutions that should contribute to greater success for IT shops in the coming year!

The first IT resolution is …. security, security, security. While corporate IT security has improved in the past several years, we are still well behind the hackers. The many breaches of 2014 demonstrate these shortcomings. Security is one of the fastest growing portions of IT (the number 2 focus item behind data analytics), but much more needs to be done though most of the crucial work is just basic, diligent execution of proper security practices. Many of the breaches took advantage of well-known vulnerabilities either at the company breached or one of its suppliers. For example, lack of current server patching was a frequent primary root cause on hacks in 2014.  And given the major economic hits of the Sony and Target breaches, these events are no longer speed bumps but instead threaten a company’s reputation and viability. Make the case now to your senior business management to double down your information security investment and not show up on the 2015 list of hacks. Not sure where to start?  Here’s a good checklist on security best practices that is still current and if fully applied would have prevented the majority of the public breaches in 2014.

Next is to explore and begin to leverage real-time decisioning. It’s more than big data — it is where you use all the information about the customer and trends to make the best decision for them (and your company) while they are transacting. It is taking the logic for ‘recommendations of what other people bought’ and applying data analytics to many kinds of business rules and choices. For example, use all the data and hidden patterns to better and more easily qualify a customer for a home loan — rather than asking them for a surfeit of documents and proofs. And offer them optimal pricing on the loan most suited for them — again determined by the data analytics. In the end, business policies will move from being almost static where changes occurs slowly, to where business policies are determined in real-time, by the data patterns. It is critical in almost every industry to understand and begin mastery of this technology.

Be on the front edge of the flash revolution in the enterprise. 2015 will be the year of flash. Already many IT shops are using hybrid flash disk technologies. With the many offerings on the market and 2nd generation releases by mainstream storage vendors like EMC, IT shops should look to leverage flash for their most performance-bound workloads. The performance improvements with flash can be remarkable. And the 90% savings on environmentals in your data center is icing on the cake. Flash, factoring in de-duplication, is comparable in cost to disk storage today. By late 2015, it could be significantly less.

If you haven’t already, go mobile, from the ground up. Mobile is the primary way most consumers interface with companies today. And with better phones and data networks, this will only increase. But don’t rely on a ‘mobilized’ version of your internet site. Make sure you tuning your customer interface for their mode of interaction. Nothing is more cumbersome to a consumer than trying to enter data from a phone into an internet form designed for PC. Yes, its doable, but nowhere near the experience you can deliver with a native app. Go mobile, go native.

Bring new talent into the IT labor force. By 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be another 1.4 million IT jobs in the US — and not nearly enough computer science graduates to fill them. Companies big and small should be looking to hire both new graduates in the field AND encourage more to look to computers for their career. In the 1970s and 1980s, before there were formal computer science programs at universities, many outstanding computer scientists received their degrees in music, biology, languages, or teaching. We need another wave of converts for us to have the skilled teams required for the demands of the next decade. As IT leaders, let’s make sure we contribute to our field and help bring along the next generation.

What are your 2015 IT resolutions? Let us know what should be on the list!

Best, and have a great New Year!

Jim

 

First Quarter Technology Trends to Note

    Jim D

For those looking for the early signs of spring, crocuses and flowering quince are excellent harbingers. For those looking for signs of technology trends and shifts, I thought it would be worthwhile to point out some new ones and provide further emphasis or confirmation of a few recent ones:

1. Enterprise server needs have flattened and the cumulative effect of cloud, virtualization, SaaS, and appliances will mean the corporate server market has fully matured. The 1Q13 numbers bear this trend is continuing (as mentioned here last month). Some big vendors are even seeing revenue declines in this space. Unit declines are possible in the near future. The result will be consolidation in the enterprise server and software industry. VMWare, BMC and CA have already seen their share prices fall as investors are concerned the growth years are behind them. Make sure your contracts consider potential acquisitions or change of control.

2. Can dual SIM smartphones be just around the corner? Actually, they are now officially here. Samsung just launched a Galaxy dual SIM in China, so perhaps it will not be long for other device makers to follow suit. Dual SIM enables excellent flexibility – just what the carriers do not want. Consider when you travel overseas, you will be able to insert a local SIM into your phone and handle all local or regional calls at low rates, and will still receive your ‘home’ number calls. Or for everyone who carries two devices, one for business and one for personal, now you still can keep your business and personal numbers separate, but only have one device.

3. Further evidence has appeared of the massive compromises enterprise are experiencing due to Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Most recently, Mandiant published a report that ties the Chinese government and the PLA to a broad set of compromises of US corporations and entities over many years.  If you have not begun to move you enterprise security from a traditional perimeter model to a post-perimeter design, make the investment. You can likely bet you are compromised, you need to not only lock the doors but thwart those who have breached your perimeter. A post here late last year covers many of the measures you need to take as an IT leader.

4. Big data and decision sciences could drive major change in both software development and business analytics. It may not be of the level of change that computers had say on payroll departments and finance accountants in the 1980s, but it could be wide-ranging. Consider that perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of all business logic now encoded in systems (by analysts and software developers) could instead be handled by data models and analytics to make business rules and decisions in real time. Perhaps all of the business analysts and software developers will then move to developing the models and  proving them out, or we could see a fundamental shift in the skills demanded in the workplace. We still have accountants of course, they just no longer do the large amount of administrative tasks. Now, perhaps applying this to legal work….

5. The explosion in mobile continues apace. Wireless data traffic is growing at 60 to 70% per year and projected to continue at this pace. The use of the mobile phone as your primary commerce device is likely to become real for most purchases in the next 5 years. So businesses are under enormous pressure to adapt and innovate in this space.  Apps that can gracefully handle poor data connections (not everywhere is 4G) and hurried consumers will be critical for businesses. Unfortunately, there are not enough of these.

Any additions you would make? Please send me a note.

Best, Jim Ditmore