2016 has been an eventful year for some, while not so great for others. Many life-changing and society-changing trends happened in this year that include Britain’s Brexit vote, Russia’s support for Syria, and of course, Mr.Trump’s stunning victory in the US Presidential election. These are profound events that are likely to shape the economy and social fabric of the Western World in the years to come.
On the tech side, there were many eventful happenings including acquisitions and partnerships. As the year comes to a close, here’s a look into some of the top trends that changed the face of cloud industry.
Accelerated development
2016 saw rapid developments in cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR). These developments put pressure on companies to embrace these developments, and to make cloud an integral part of their operations. These developments and the benefits that came from it led to a wider adoption of cloud. In fact, almost every major Fortune 500 company was touched by these cloud developments, while many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) gained greater awareness about cloud and its potential benefits. All this means, 2016 lay the foundation for an explosive growth of the cloud industry for years to come.
Growth in cyber attacks
Despite all the advancements we’ve made, 2016 still saw a huge number of cyber attacks that led to a loss in the tune of trillions of dollars. The biggest of them all is undoubtedly Russia’s involvement in Trump’s campaign, but other than that, there were also attacks on many major organizations. At this rate, loss from cyber attacks is expected to touch $6 billion by 2021, according to a report from Cybersecurity Ventures.
Due to these frequent attacks, many steps were taken by different service providers and corporate clients to prevent such attacks, and this included advancements in cloud security. In fact, many companies moved to the cloud from dedicated data centers, thereby reversing the trend of security fears in the public cloud.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence
It was a big year for the world of machine learning and artificial intelligence, as almost every major company announced product releases or developments in this sector. Google, for instance, announced the launch of Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones that comes with many AI-based features. Apple published a paper on AI, and has said in length about its new iOS 10 that will be powered by artificial intelligence. Microsoft and Facebook are not to be left behind, as the former has collaborated with Intel to develop new AI features for its customers, while the latter is working on a deep learning system called Caffe2Go. Since all of these development use cloud in one form or another, these developments brought much cheer to cloud providers.
In short, 2016 was an exciting year for the cloud industry, and in many ways, it has put the industry on an accelerated path. 2017 and the coming years, are likely to see greater adoption of cloud not just among large enterprises, but also among SMEs. In all, we can expect another exciting and fulfilling year in 2017.
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