As major trends like cloud computing, mobility and Big Data continue to dominate technology headlines and channel discussions; there are a number of interesting developments taking place at other levels of the technology universe. Improvements to the most basic building blocks of IT have enabled today’s trends, and tomorrow’s trends will be fueled by the pioneering improvements currently underway:
Computing: The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for at least a decade, but many industry experts believe that it may actually be near as current fabrication processes beyond 10-nanometer truly push up against the laws of physics and also become prohibitively expensive. However, several potential technologies may allow computing capacity to increase, even if not at the rate of doubling every 18 months. 3D transistors, 3D stacking and the use of graphene as the primary transistor material all show promise, and new techniques in software development could also improve performance.
Storage: With IDC estimating the amount of global data at 2.7 zettabytes at the end of 2012 and the amount of data doubling every two years, storage has never been more critical. The pricing and density of both flash storage and DRAM have improved to make them more palatable options recently, leading to the rise of applications such as in-memory databases. Further out, technologies such as crossbar memory or quartz glass promise to further improve density or longevity.
Networking: Google Fiber is a high-profile case of improving network speeds at the consumer level, and the city of Chattanooga, TN, serves as an example of gigabit-per-second Internet providing tangible economic benefits. Even as communities and enterprises grapple with the implications of gigabit speed, researchers experimenting with twisted light have achieved speeds of 1.6 terabits per second over fiber and 2.5 terabits per second over the air.
Sensors: Mobile devices have given companies new ways to extend communications and productivity, but they also carry a range of sensors that is ushering in a contextual computing era. Meanwhile, standalone sensor networks act as the foundation for the burgeoning machine-to-machine (M2M) market. Sensor technology is dropping in price as miniaturization improves, and the area is certainly a hotbed of invention: IBM dedicated its 2013 5 in 5 list of life-changing innovations to sensors.
Displays: Given all the benefits to be gained from vast amounts of computational power, it’s critical to easily get information in front of our eyes or at our fingertips. This is why products such as the Samsung Gear and Google Glass generate such interest. Beyond wearables, flexible OLED displays or touchscreens created anywhere with a projector and a Kinect camera hint at the possibility of displays in an extremely wide variety of locations.
Since most of this gear is still in the lab or just hitting the mass market, what importance does it hold for channel providers? The bottom line is that technology will continue to grow even more powerful and pervasive than it is today. The situation almost becomes a thought experiment: If you had unlimited computing resources and unlimited bandwidth, what would you do with it? Businesses are starting to think this way, and there is definitely a trend towards technology driving business objectives rather than simply playing a supporting role.
Tying technology to business objectives doesn’t mean that every company will build internal technology teams. In fact, there may be a greater need for outside help as companies choose to focus on their core capabilities and as integrating various solutions becomes more complex. To get ahead of the curve, solution providers should be aware of those innovations that could blossom into common offerings and be thinking about the services they can offer as their clients think about where they want to take their business.
