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Before we discuss what you think will impact IT departments in the next year, what are
the most notable changes you have seen over the last couple of years?
The most notable change that I've seen in the technology industry in the last couple
of years is pretty much the rise of the iPad and other tablet and mobile devices. Starting
off as mainly consumer devices but they have crept into company departments. We're seeing
a lot of business users wanting to use the iPad, or other similar devices instead of
standard PCs or laptops.
If you were an IT Director, what technological developments would you be keeping a firm eye
on at the moment?
If I were an IT Director the main developments that I would be looking to keep a firm eye
on are mainly around the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) approach that we're seeing a lot of
people getting excited about. It's again about mobile devices and tablets, specifically where
a business user might already have their own device and they are looking to take advantage
of that to help them work - to be more effective, to be more mobile. The problem for an IT department
is that they've still got to focus on information security while allowing their staff to be
able to use these devices in a flexible manner.
And what else do you think will be key over the next year?
Over the next year I think the key development is probably going to be towards consolidating
the development environment for these various mobile devices. At the moment you've got Apple's
iPad and iPhone and you have to use Objective C to code for those. With the Android devices
you have to use Java. With Microsoft Surface you will now have to use C# mainly and the
.NET framework. That causes a problem for departments because they want a system which
can work across all these devices, so writing a native application for these devices is
currently quite challenging. I suspect in reality, we will move towards web applications
which can be used across all these devices and that's where I expect development in terms
of tools and libraries to facilitate this kind of work.
Are there any technologies or trends you think will see a decrease in demand over the next
year?
Over the next year, over the next two years potentially, the main technology that I see
decreasing is related to traditional thick client Windows applications. With all the
new tablets, the mobile devices coming in, the use of web technologies to be able to
span across all those devices, there isn't really room for these traditional thick client
applications. A lot of stuff is already moving to the web now - being able to be compatible
with these tablets and mobile devices is very important so I suspect, long term, that's
what's going to decline.
So in summary, we're looking at a trend of more mobile devices, applications that are
written specifically for those devices or hopefully more web-based technologies that
will be able to span those technologies. We're less likely to be looking at new applications
written specifically for thick client systems such as Windows.