As we move towards the end of the year, we will see more posts with trends’ reviews for 2013. While it is really hard to predict “next big things”, these posts usually provide a good perspective on what is going on. Earlier this week, my attention caught by Gartner’s Top 10 strategic tech for 2013 publication. Navigate to the following link in PC Magazine Forward Thinking publication to review details. You can see the picture with top 10 techs below.
It made me think about some interesting intersections of these trends with the priorities of engineering applications and specifically PLM technologies and systems.
Mobile Technologies and HTML5
The question about what will become a preferable technology for mobile and web browsers will continue to be dominant in PLM development eco-system. The complexity of the systems is high. Therefore, vendors will be slow to adopt every change. I believe vendors will try first to concentrate on the supported versions of browsers. Old browsers are easier to reject. Native mobile apps is something more complicated. Most of consumers prefer native mobile apps and not browsers. Therefore, the improvement of HTML5 technologies can be an advantage for PLM vendors considering mobile options.
Enterprise App Stores
Introducing of cloud and mobile apps is raising a question about the future of application distribution. IT will need a tool(s) to distribute new type of application in organizations. App store is a fascinating idea and the majority of people these days actually “got this”. In my view, the challenge will be to balance between chaotic nature of consumer app stores (Apple, Google) and more structured way enterprise IT wants to distribute application to customers. PLM vendors traditionally survive from a problem how to expand usage of PLM tools in organizations. So, App store can be a good idea to fix it.
Internet of Things
This is very fascinating topic. You might be interested to read one of my earlier blog posts. We have more products (things) that connected to the network and starting to communicate online. How it can be connected to PLM? In my opinion, the connection is in a ‘lifecycle’. Today PLM is heavily involved into design and engineering. Less in manufacturing. However, what about the lifecycle of the products after they’re built in a factory and sold, delivered to actual customers. This is a space we are going to discover in a near future. iPhone controlled bulbs is just a beginning.
Hybrid IT and Cloud computing
Traditionally, companies are working with IT departments to get things done. PLM is not different in that sense. Servers need to be configured, routers connected, software installed and updated. This is how a traditional eco-system looks like. At the same time, cloud is coming, which means no servers, no software, no updates. Even if cloud software will become widely adopted, companies will be running a lot of applications and software on premise for a very long period of time. So, how IT will be re-organized around this environment? How we will consume our “granular PLM apps”?
Strategic Big Data
There are lot of confusion around Big Data topic. Here is the big data definition from Gartner’s report – Cearley continued to define big data as dealing not just with volume, but also with variety, velocity, and the complexity of data an organization is dealing with. He talked about managing both internal and external data, and talked about how technologies such as Hadoop may be a big part, but only a part, of it. Big Data certainly open horizons to get more information about product and improve quality of the products from the standpoint that cannot be achieved now.
What is my conclusion? In my view, enterprise software technologies are going through a significant change now. Many software systems in engineering and manufacturing sector are approaching end of their lifecycle. It is a time for vendors to provide new cost-effective solutions targeting new user experience and different IT eco-system. Cost and user experience is one segment where lots of improvements can be made. Another one is data – customers will be actively looking for additional information about products and customers. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
