Technology trends 2008 - Review

Technology Trends for 2008.

I had seen the a report on “Hype cycle on Emerging Technologies” last August and was wondering whether software companies would accept such a dynamic marketplace with innovations happening as per Moore’s law on hardware.

I will pick up few technologies that interests me and that are predicted for extensive implementation in the years to come throughout the IT industry.

Portals / Web 2.0 / SAAS
With new and small startups emerging from every corner of the world, it is imperative that they have limited budget but niche services to offer to the “WORLD”. With or without VC, the startups have shown to the world what the Internet highway can offer.

I was recently researching Wealth Management Product Companies and was astonished to see so many small companies who sell such a product via Internet but as a service and I could shortlist a few ones who have products that can be touched/ felt. Gone or the days when we install a product through CD’s. Everything including patch upgrades is delivered via web.

Last year, I used to type google on the location bar of IE 10 times a day for my work. But now, I use Web 2.0 to surf the Internet content which I frequently need to see. Web 2.0 is something that brings different applications together on one platform. Examples of Web 2.0 are:
 YouTube (High quality streaming videos) – Politicians are using it for campaigning and producers with no work history sell movies!
 Flickr (Photo Sharing)
 WordPress (Blogs) – Infosys has created an outsourcing blog on its web site to promote its technical and consulting knowledge
 RSS Feeds – I am using many RSS feeds which help me to categorize content as per my interests and work

Simply put, “Web 2.0 gives the handle of YOUR site to the user”

Flex / AJAX / Silver light / Rich Internet Applications
One of the ways to measure an application’s functionality over the web is to see how much time it takes to respond to a user’s request. The PC user is impatient and does not like to see static content for long time and wishes to see updated content every time s/he blinks his/her eye. AJAX one of the concepts of developing rich internet applications has changed the way how the user interacts with the server. The fast and highly responsive communication makes healthy web surf.

Adobe’s flex and Microsoft’s Silver light are similar technologies but are proprietary in nature but can really help software vendors to build highly interactive and rich Internet applications.

These applications are used by startup firms that wish to come online within no time, and enterprises that have legacy systems in place find it difficult to implement.

RFID / Location Aware Technologies
RFID is no more a branding phenomenon used to tag tamed animals by its owners. It is now a tracking technology for employee attendance or missing goods at a retail store. Early adopters include a company in Bangladesh which has implemented this technology in Hospitals to check Doctor’s and Nurse’s attendance every day!. Another hospital uses RFID to track in real time, employee’s location within its facility. WOW!

Mashups
This is the technology that really interests me. A highly recommended technology to offer services via web by the user to the user!

You can mix photos, videos, feeds, blogs, data, maps and provide niche services over the internet highway.

Visit http://www.songza.com/ to see how mashups work.

- Gururaj