Technology is an ever-evolving thing. Change will always be its undying mantra and consumers of every demography will always be subject to the temporality of it all. Business owners, employees and the leisure class will always be affected by its fickle ways. Usefulness will always be confronted by the demands of consumer wants and needs. Brands will always play their relevance trump cards either as fashionable items or productivity boosting tools. Anyway we look at it, technology change will always impact our lives, whether we like it or not. Whether we need change or not will often be immaterial.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Unless some smart aleck succeeds in inventing something to replace this cliché, we will always be captive subscribers to this adage. Technology brings about change and change brings about new technology. It is a vicious cycle of usefulness and programmed obsolescence. Tech trends will be formed and they will rule next until the time comes. So let’s all go forward some time into the near future and take a peek at what’s most likely to happen:
- Mobile devices will replace desktop devices in offices. Mobile and workstation employees will be leaving their laptops in the office and will be going about business they need to do outdoors using tablets. Employees will be more mobile device-prone. As business phone VoIP system technologies like RingCentral advance further, it will develop into something that will address functionality that prioritizes mobile device performance over desktop device performance. All employees will be smartphone and tablet users. Soon enough, all of them will just be tablet users because tech design will head in the direction of turning tablets into smartphones. This technology already exists.
- IT infra will veer towards surveillance. Employee-owned mobile devices will be interacting with company online systems more and will necessitate IT infrastructure protection policies and company info integrity maintenance and security measures. It will come to a point that all accidentally or illegally accessed/shared company info will be cause for sanctions against employees. To prevent this, companies will enact measures that not only protect systems from such but also bar and prevent such via spyware technology that presently exists. The only reason why companies do not usually practice such measures is because there are more legal impediments than there are compelling reasons to make it compulsory.
- Mobile app development will accelerate. Mobile app use will increase further until such time that developers will be forced to come up with apps that can create other apps faster and with less technical savvy. There are currently hundreds and hundreds of apps available online for every imaginable use by workers and leisure users. Most of these are downloadable for free while there are some you can buy at premium prices for business use. As serious tech savvy begins to be taken off the equation, we see mobile users becoming more efficient, smarter and even more productive.
- Information apps will take over data and info search. Information access and data search will be made easier for next generation users accessing the internet for the first time via mobile device info apps. This narrows down search activities to sites presenting specific and relevant information to users. Open web browsers present general info that takes time to examine and will not likely appeal to the next generation of mobile device users with a lot shorter attention spans.
- Social media will become primary provider of professional content. Websites and blogs will be migrating professional content to social media sites and will be optimized to adapt to the kind of interactivity in that tech platform. Social media users becoming a formidable consumer bloc will be acknowledged by companies and retailers. It will be viewed as a market group sharing the same consumer sensibilities, buying habits, and the same penchant for mobile device shopping app use. Mobile retail will increase further owing to this.