Between december 20th and januari 10th ISP Today talks to Dutch internet-buffs and reviews the ending year. Today Florian Overkamp (SpeakUp) shares his re- and preview with the sector. Most important from his viewpoint: adoption of cloud-services (in the Dutch market – red.).
Internet of Things
“It has been a gradual development, but to me 2013 is the turning point in the adoption of cloud-services,” Overkamp says “The dangers that users see in the cloud are finally adressed in a rational manner, rather than using them as an excuse to not use them at all. In our own field we see that with cloud-telecommunication-solutions more fixed-mobile solutions are offered, increasing the acceptance by users. Phones and tablets are getting smarter and are, more often than not, an integral part of our work and life, bringing the Internet-of-Things closer.”
Sector more aware
“Although the Netherlands has a strong position in availability of broadband internet, we are just tinkering with applications that use that. Truly innovative serviceproviders are just now rising to the occasion. I am glad to see that the sector is much more aware of customers risks and the measures that can be implemented to address redunancy, security, privacy etc.”
Building combinations
Overkamp thinks the next stage will be about integration issues. “How do I make all these cloud-applications cooperate with each other?,” is the question to expect. “The best cloud-apps are very much focussed on a specific functionality. This makes them very intuitive, but it also means there is not a single cloud-app to cover the customer’s IT need entirely. As a result, building combinations between apps is very important. As a side-effect it also helps mitigate some of the risks of the cloud, because the impact of one cloud-app being unavailable can be limited. In my line of work we also see the importance of having the apps on multiple screens – we want to choose which device (mobile, tablet, laptop, smart-TV) we want to use to do our work. Cloud-apps user interfaces need to address this.”
Integrating cloud-apps
His new-year thought for 2014: “It will be interesting to see what users will be doing this next year. Will they, after Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), also be doing Bring Your Own Cloud-app (BYOC) and will, as Gartner states, every employee become their own IT-department? If that happens, initiatives such as CloudHub to hook up API’s between very diverse cloud-applications will prove of immense importance. Something to ponder over during the festive days. With a glass of bubbly, if possible.”