7 key trends driving the consumerisation of IT [TechEd]

In a bid to make Windows 8 more attractive Microsoft is pushing the consumerisation of tech. The company has identified that it needs to widen the ecosystem of computers where any type of product and device can be connected to the internet.

At TechEd, the company’s Africa leg of its annual developer conference, head of Windows business group Colin Erasmus and Bruce Murphy, product marketing manager for Windows commercial, outlined some of the key trends that are driving tech consumerisation.
 
According to the duo there has been an “explosion in data driven by the significant increase in the number of devices we use each day”.

Technology is evolving in areas that make it more user-friendly, such as creating natural ways to interact with devices, including multitouch, voice, vision, and gestures. User demands are being considered with light, portable, flexible, and cheap displays wherever they might be useful. 

“A series of technology trends is leading to rapid progress and change in the technology we use at home, which in turn is influencing how we expect to use technology for work and driving the consumerisation of IT,” they say.

Erasmus and Murphy argue that the as following technology trends “converge with social and business trends, the role that technology plays throughout our lives will continue to evolve”.

The computing ecosystem

Microsoft believes that the definition of a computer is changing from “unintelligent” objects to intelligent, connected devices which are joining the ecosystem of computing.

“We are entering the era of an ‘internet of things’ in which almost any object can be connected to the internet and collect data that contributes to a global web of knowledge. Virtually every type of product is becoming part of the computing ecosystem — from cars, phones, and houses to scales, cameras, power meters, and televisions,” says the duo.

The Redmond-based company reckons that the computers we will interact with in the future will be devices that aren’t the ones we think of as computers today, citing that “computing is becoming increasingly invisible”.

The explosion of data

As our world become device-focused, the more data we create. Microsoft believes that analysis of the growing amounts of data is enabling computers come to terms with, and perhaps understand, the “physical world and to behave in a more human way, anticipating our needs and understanding our intentions”.

Natural interaction

“More natural ways to interact with technology are rapidly emerging — multi-touch, voice, vision and gestures,” says Erasmus.

According to Murphy and Erasmus, this means that computers are becoming better at adapting to human behaviour and showing some increased signs of “intelligence”.

“This trend will see computers shift from being tools to being helpers, performing tasks on our behalf based on an awareness of the environments we are in and the context of our actions,” Erasmus adds, ultimately making computers easier to interact with and easier to use.

Pervasive displays

“New display technologies will give rise to displays that are light, portable, flexible and cheap,” says Murphy. He reckons carrying a screen around will become as commonplace as carrying a magazine with users taking for granted the “fact that screens are embedded wherever they might be useful — whether we’re at home, at work, on the move, or in public spaces”.

This is leading us into a world where “ubiquitous connectivity will automatically link our information to those screens when we want to use them”.

Social computing

Probably one of the most popular of the emerging trends in computing, social computing has already changed the way we create and monitor our connections. The duo feel that the world of social computing remains quite fragmented.

“The lack of integration creates frustrating disconnects that are inevitable when we are forced to switch between services and applications to stay up to date,” say the duo.

Microsoft argues that social computing will undergo a “dramatic transformation” as technology changes, making it possible to truly organise our online and offline lives based on data from social.

“Social networking itself will also change, becoming far more visual and less text-centric,” comments Murphy.

Cloud computing

One of the biggest change in computing to date — cloud technology. “With its massive data centers, cloud computing delivers virtually infinite resources, providing the storage capacity and processing power to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems in healthcare, the environment, energy, scientific discovery, and many other fields,” says Erasmus.

As a hub for all data and information, Microsoft reckons it will enable users to capture, store, index, parse, and remember as much of our day-to-day lives as we choose to share.

“Fundamental breakthroughs in massively parallel computing will enable us to see patterns in data that can make actionable intelligence more prevalent,” Murphy adds.

Ubiquitous connectivity

“Increasingly, we will be connected at all times to people, information, services and applications without requiring any specific action on our part,” says Erasmus.

The company argues that will unlock information that has already been created ourselves as well expose any information from any source that might be relevant to what users are doing. A process that will allow users to have all the information they need through seamless unification in the form that is most useful.