Jan 12, 2012
Cloud Computing: Mobile, Social Networking, Big Data Drive IT Development
Cloud, mobile computing, social networking and "big data" analytics are some of the top trends steering the IT industry in 2012, according to end-of-the-year conclusions from market research firms such as IDC and Gartner. Those sectors are hardly new and certainly not considered early trends anymore. Cloud computing, or computing hosted on third-party servers, keeps nibbling away at on-premises computing. Mobile computing via tablets and smartphones is overtaking desktop computing. The corresponding social networking explosion among consumers is bleeding over into the enterprise and spurring the need for increased investments in big data, the new name for business intelligence, data analytics software. Microsoft, HP, SAP, Apple, Google and Amazon are either leading or investing heavily in these markets to make sure they’re not left behind. This eWEEK slide show synthesizes Gartner’s and IDC’s predictions for 2012 here