Technology trends in a global and local scaleIT is one of the interesting field in the world, the way its evolving shows how much it has impacted the world. Allow me to discuss some few important things about this subject beginning with the trends across the globe in 2012 and beyond and those that are local here in South Africa.
1. Cloud ComputingThe reason why I have discussed this trend is because of it popularity in our days today and since South African are embracing it. Therefore I believe that by discussing cloud will contribute to the existing literature on this topic.
Cloud computing is making its way to the top more as especially in Africa. An article by Sean Gallagher shows Africa is embracing cloud. The trust is that Cloud computing has affect every sector even those who don't know about they some how use to much greater extent. Cloud computing is one of the emerging trends in South Africa and around the world cloud computing has the potential of providing efficiency in the private and the public sectors. Lamb (2011) suggests that cloud computing will assist green IT and reduce the cost of energy. ETRO (2010) describe cloud computing as “an Internet-based technology through which information is stored in servers and provided as an on-demand service to clients, possibly jointly with the traditional form of access”. Through the use of cloud computing companies such as Google have introduce application like Google doc, Google map, etc. which work mainly on cloud. Cloud computing in the aspect of power management has the biggest advantage (Angepat, 2009), again cloud can be in a dimension of salacity and portability using the fact that one can access the files at any time. However they are some major negative impact of cloud computing. Cloud computing is maintained and supervised by a third party this on its own opens a doorway for security threads and confidentiality of data. Since South Africa has recently adopted cloud computing they are many things that need to be overlooked in terms of security. The data in cloud computing is not specifically segregated thus it is distributed throughout the cloud network and causes problems when specific data needs to be segregated. Also another weakness is that cloud is the dependence on network connectivity. So as South Africa is going for cloud it is important look for such thing as network failures because this could result in loss to the company by causing extensive time delays. The research by Angepat (2009) shows that there are no federal policies addressing how government information is accessed. If there is anything important about cloud computing it is availability as we approach 2013 we need to make further inspections on the availability of cloud since most companies now rely on it. Big DataI have decided to discuss this trend because of three important reasons 1) this trends has been mentioned by almost five companies reports in South Africa and the world. 2) Previous investigation by Intel and Lemp suggest that most companies are struggling with the amount of data they have or manage thus I see this as a significant trend for IT businesses I also thing that by discussing this through the research I have done it will help them to understand the importance of Big Data in this age. 3) In South African context many companies like banks and insurance companies have become victims of information overwhelming. I think it is not only about the trend but about the people who are affected by it as well.
Big data according Avanade (2010) is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools. It is expected that this year and beyond we will see more of this trend. Having this knowledge in mind I would to mention some of the things that will have negative impact in South African context. Big data is a solution indeed but again there another side however for developing countries such as South Africa where infrastructures are still not fully available this trend could be just a wave that moves along the other fully established countries. Also it is important to mention that health sector in SA will need to implement this for their research facilities but the problem will be the resources.Since their is so much corruption in our country financing the projects for big data in health sectors could be a problem. Social MediaSocial media are actually young but growing at a very rapid rate. I can across this interesting blog “Why Your CEO Needs to Jump on the Social Media Bandwagon" and I think this might just give you an idea of how significant social media have become. Social media will invade the business world in just a moment as we see now in 2012 almost all prominent companies either have a Facebook page or are on Twitter. Today, it seems impossible to do business or even keep on with competition if you are outside the virtual world or cyberspace. Deloitte one of the biggest IT companies in South Africa might also add to the prediction of 2012 on Social Business where give us the idea of how social media has affected their business environment. With this in mind I think we are going to see more of social media in the business world this year.
ReferencesAngepat, S. P. C. M. (2009). Cloud Computing: Analysing the risks involved in cloud computing environments
ETRO, F. (2010). The Economic Consequences of the Diffusion of Cloud Computing (World Economic Forum). Lamb, J. (2011). Green IT and use of Private Cloud Computing in South Africa ieeexplore. VansonBourne. (2012). The Business Impact of the Cloud Avanade. (2010). Global Survey: The Business Impact of Big Data. Moxie. (2012). Moxie 2012 Trends Report. |
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