Digital data will be king in 2017

People watch a hologram of a Cartier craftman during an exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum. Holograms are also being utilised increasingly in the education sector for learning and teaching.

Technology is constantly evolving and growing, moving from a nascent entity to one that is widely accepted. The changes that come with digital transformation are so commonplace now that human life cannot function without it. Mobile and cloud are two prominent names in the digital journey, connecting businesses and individuals everywhere all the time.

New technologies such as smart devices, IoT, big data, artificial and virtual intelligence and robot technology are making headway into mainstream adoption. Emergence of cloud computing has brought massive changes in the digital world, urging organisations to rethink their existing business models. Research conducted by Forbes shows that approximately 93 per cent of businesses currently rely on cloud technology to some degree, with 82 per cent of enterprises adopting a hybrid cloud strategy.

There is no question that the amount of digital data has increased drastically. More and more companies are migrating infrastructure and applications to the cloud. A number of different cloud models are being adopted by firms for the purpose of streamlining business processes and embedding the flexibility to react quickly to the changing needs of their operating market.

This massive shift in organisations' business models has been spurred by the need to keep pace with the rapid digitisation taking place globally. The phenomenon of Internet of things (IoT) alone is expected to bring new data collecting devices over the course of next few years and will continue to rise in both consumer and B2B segments in the coming year, connecting data, things, processes and people.

IT managers must now think of not only collecting, organising, processing and backing up huge amounts of data. They also need to harness that data in order to generate meaningful insights that lead to intelligent actions for the advancement of businesses. This whole new data-centred approach is anticipated to unlock new avenues for IT professionals to excel in their careers by enrolling into data science certification programmes and avail advanced growth opportunities.

Data growth
Growing penetration of the Internet, particularly in emerging economies, and the digitisation of several industries have been instrumental in increasing the amount of data being generated online. The amount of digital data continues to rise from 10 zettabytes of digital data to 50 zettabytes of data. In 2020, one million new devices are expected to come online every hour. The digitisation of things, heightened individual mobility and collaboration continue to accelerate data increase.

Thus, big data will continue to be a necessary asset for companies in all sectors in the coming year: from data algorithms to data entry, bringing transformative change in the IT landscape.

2016 has also been a big year for virtual reality, with the emergence of various mixed reality technologies such as Microsoft HoloLens. Augmented reality machines and apps are starting to see massive popularity, bringing millions of users together for a shared physical and digital hybrid experience. Holograms are also being utilised increasingly in the education sector for learning and teaching, making virtual reality a viable consumer product. This momentum is expected to snowball in the future and will be the next big thing in diverse industries beyond movies, video games, medicine, sports and education.

Apps for commercial use
Open platforms are wonderful tools for transformative changes and have helped accelerate innovation by enabling companies and developers to explore different methods. Significant investments have been made throughout the year in artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, IoT and big data analytics. The technology sector will see further advances in applications being built for commercial use based on open developer platforms, helping transform the customer experience.

The pace of technological change is not expected to slow down in the coming year and the tech sector must continue to innovate and achieve seamless integration between products and platforms. Continued attention to efficiency, privacy and security will remain essential components in the adoption of new tools and services across industries, come 2017.

The writer is cloud and enterprise lead at Microsoft Gulf. Views expressed are his own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy.