Technological development and digitization will continue to pick up speed in 2021 - "Corona catapults us into 2030", says Stefan Ried, Principal Analyst at Cloudflight, on the twelve most important technology trends of the coming year.
Rarely in our history has there been a year in which external circumstances have changed as radically as they did last year. Corona gave digitization a boost that will continue in 2021. At the same time, the acceptance or rejection of certain technologies will change as rapidly as we would otherwise experience within a decade. With this in mind - welcome to the year 2030!
Technology acceptance polarizes further
The acceptance of digital innovations will continue to divide minds. The tech-savvy part of society will weigh and take risks, while the other part will categorically reject many of these technologies. Extreme worldviews are increasingly developing that mix with conspiracy theories. Researching acceptance criteria will play an increasingly important role in software development, since pilot versions of software (MVPs) are not tested by many on principle.
Data protection concerns are slowing down digitization
Even if a healthy skepticism towards global providers is appropriate, not every American or Chinese cloud provider is automatically criminal. Here it is important to check contracts, security measures, certifications and the business models of the providers. Many privacy advocates are slowing down digitization by not doing so and instead banning global services. Ultimately, however, cloud providers live on the trust of their users. If you abuse that, your business model will fail.
Corona losers react with new business models
Since the pandemic will still be ubiquitous in 2021, the transformation and expansion of certain business areas will continue. Restaurants are becoming delivery services with online ordering options, and event organizers are moving towards streaming platforms. The as-a-service economy replaces previous investments to manage risk in the uncertain economic climate. There will be a decline in corporate or regional data centers and disproportionate growth in hyperscalers, i.e. global public cloud infrastructure providers with a fast ROI. As these providers now meet EU privacy requirements, we will see changes here soon.
Corona winners invest in technological lead
As in every crisis, there are also profiteers in this case. These include online retailers, logisticians, delivery services and manufacturers of protective clothing and hygiene articles. Video services, network component providers and telecommunications companies in particular are booming in the IT industry. In 2021, they will invest their profits massively in sustainable and disruptive technologies as well as in business model and technology development in order to prepare for the new competitive situation after Corona. The so-called circular economy is working on upcycling solutions for raw materials, new deposit systems or delivery drones.
Market leaders write their own business software
Driven by the corona profiteers, the trend towards alternative business software solutions, which industry leaders such as Otto and Lidl have already initiated in recent years, will continue in the coming year. Other companies will question the costs of implementing and maintaining ERP software packages and have alternative business software designed on the basis of open source platforms or platform-as-a-service services.
Hardware and software appliances are separated again
In many cases, the software is traditionally "embedded" in the hardware by the manufacturer. While hardware is developing continuously and more slowly, the associated software will develop much faster in the future. Many OEMs therefore try to develop software themselves or to obtain it from software partners, such as Volkswagen with its CarOS or Daimler through its partnership with Google / Waymo. Suppliers like Bosch or Continental have a difficult decade ahead of them in which they have to prove themselves in a new ecosystem with their own software innovations.
Software Stack Eruption - Data is the new software
The role of software in terms of quality and functionality will increasingly be replaced by data in 2021. A whole class of data products is emerging that will be available on platforms. Merely collecting data does not lead to a breakthrough, algorithms have to be further developed on the basis of this. At the same time, programming without real data will reach its limits in the coming decade only with simulations. It is therefore crucial to collect sufficient quantities of good quality learning data quickly. Traditional software without machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a commodity and is being replaced by an orchestration of platform-as-a-service services.
Hybrid cloud and multi cloud - Fast forward towards PaaS
In 2021, the simultaneous use of private and public clouds as well as multi-clouds in one application landscape will become the norm. The abstraction of various cloud infrastructures with a Kubernetes-based container management as well as special software frameworks such as Google's Anthos or Microsoft's Azure Arc will support this development. In addition, users will also use hybrid PaaS services in 2021. These are software services that provide an integrated management environment across multiple hyperscalers, such as the recently announced version of MongoDB's Atlas database service. Private clouds will also integrate seamlessly into PaaS administration tools like an additional public cloud provider.
IoT becomes the surface of "Anywhere Computing"
In 2021, IoT will not just be a mainstream technology, but will have established itself as the outer edge of edge computing. Even if it will take a long time before all industrial plants are online, from 2021 practically no new machines will be built that do not include an online option when ordering. This means that the special status of IoT devices is history. Since all hyperscalers will offer all private cloud services, edge computing will not be an island, but an integrated part of a larger topology. This development simplifies the combination of autonomous capabilities “at the edge” with large amounts of data and AI processes in the public cloud. This paves the way for developments such as autonomous robotics on a large scale.
5G mobile communication is struggling in Germany
Although German telecommunications companies are extremely profitable, due to incorrect regulations and political lobbyism, no nationwide 2021G coverage will be achieved in 5 either. Instead, larger companies invest in campus networks as an alternative or supplement to WIFI structures.
In 2021, 30 percent of the AI / ML projects in DACH will be productive
In 2021, pilots and MVPs will be a thing of the past, both in B2B and B2C. In the consumer sector, real-time translation apps increase significantly as soon as people travel more again. Autonomous driving in Europe will not yet reach the level in 2021 that it is in the USA and China. In this country, legal concerns have still not been resolved and are blocking innovations on public roads. Clearly defined EU approval regulations and verifiable tests for autonomous vehicles are long overdue.
Voice is the new mobile
It took almost ten years for smartphones and tablets to gain acceptance for the use of content websites, e-commerce and even ERP systems. "Voice-as-UI" as a new tool is now progressing much faster. Even if voice interfaces are initially only used to a limited extent and predominantly in the consumer sector, certain user interactions in the professional sector are already conceivable.
Artificial intelligence works with text and spoken language, but natural language experiences a higher level of user acceptance. Corona continues to contribute to this due to the increased need for "touchless UIs". Text-based chatbots do not offer this potential.
2021 with new opportunities
The year 2020, which is drawing to a close, was firmly in the grip of the pandemic and will therefore lead to a bad start into the next decade. But this is where the opportunity lies: CIOs and software architects assume that the crisis has triggered a development that would otherwise not have been possible to this extent. Even if many companies are at the crossroads of their existence, the economy in this country has been roused by Covid-19. The technological backwardness was uncovered and the risks of a further delay in digitization became clear. In order not to further consolidate the latecomer position in Europe, the industry of the German-speaking countries has to rediscover its innovative spirit. That would be a good resolution for 2021.
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Cloudflight is the leading provider of digitization solutions in Europe. More than 400 visionary and qualified IT strategists, software architects, data scientists, cloud specialists and consultants are working together to drive digital transformation. The company was founded in 2019 through the merger of Catalysts, a pioneering solution provider for customer-specific software and artificial intelligence, and the renowned IT consulting and analyst company Crisp Research. By combining this expertise, Cloudflight offers its customers a holistic end-to-end service portfolio - from individual software development and strategic consulting to cloud operation.