Top 5 technology trends for Middle East businesses in 2013 (page 2 of 2)

Technology will begin to overcome human shortcomings
I remember when desktop icons did not exist...a time when a user had to manually type the name of an application in a shell-like text window to access applications. This was time-consuming, error-prone and frustrating, but the desktop icon revolutionized the user experience.

Innovations such as this overcame human shortcomings and simplified the user experience, and I predict more such innovations over the next 12 months. Think of voice-command devices, and the fact that modern smartphones can deliver communications, content and compute services in a single form-factor. This kind of human multitasking would not happen, but technology has innovated to such a degree that it is now second nature to even the most basic user. I expect more breakthrough advances this year...exactly, what that breakthrough will be is the million-dollar question.

5. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) deployments begin

The Olympics proved that consumer demand for information accessibility shows no sign of abating. However, as service providers try to meet said demand, and juggle the complexities of running a profitable business - for instance, to reduce CapEx (capital expenditure) and OpEx (operating expenditure) and increase service responsiveness - they are looking for technology alternatives that will streamline service creation and foster innovative applications and services. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) offers a means of doing this.

SDN links networks and applications, enabling direct programmatic control of both networks and orchestration layers in line with end-user application needs, rather than programming around the network, as is done today. IDC predicts that by 2016, the market will be worth $2 billion a year, up from just $168 million today.

With the promise of SDN architectures radically decreasing total cost of ownership (TCO), and vendor innovation/support continuing to increase, I predict that we'll see pockets of actual SDN service deployments across the region. 2013 will see the start of great things for this technology.