Companies are experiencing rising IT costs, which places them in a precarious position if they do not embrace technologies and trends such as cloud computing and bring your own device (BYOD). Both have been connected for some time, especially as more employees demand access to work-related content through their smartphones and tablets from anywhere they are.
The emergence of BYOD has made it necessary for businesses to support a breadth of mobile operating systems, including Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Devices powered by these platforms include robust offerings of mobile applications that can support an individual worker's habits.
Application development can be aided with solutions like Android controls, iOS controls and Windows Phone controls. These options allow firms to create highly visual and functional apps for all of these platforms that meet corporate demands and employee preferences.
A recent Gartner report suggested that cloud computing, BYOD and mobile applications are viable options for firms that want to manage growing IT costs more effectively. The research firm said the global cloud market is projected to total $131 billion in 2013, surpassing $180 billion by 2015.
The use of both corporate-owned and personally owned gadgets is resulting in greater security costs to manage these products. Gartner explained that businesses may benefit greatly from implementing their own enterprise application stores to better manage the influx of various consumer apps entering the workplace.
Firms are Moving Ahead with Third Platform
An IDC report also emphasized the importance of technologies such as cloud computing and mobility, among others. According to the research firm, these solutions all make up the Third Platform, which will be crucial for the continued growth of the IT industry moving forward.
Overall, spending throughout the information and communications technology market will expand from $3.7 trillion in 2013 to more than $5 trillion by 2020. Amy Konary, research vice president at IDC, said that the Third Platform is not only a technological revolution, but a customer-facing one as well.
"As a result, expect the rise of new software business models that align more closely with business outcomes and customers' experiences," said Konary. "Customers should expect to see models that enable access to and consumption of applications when and where they want. Pricing will scale up or down according to consumption or need, allowing customers to pay only for what they use."
Organizations that want to support a mobile workforce should not hesitate to embrace the possibilities of cloud computing and mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. The possibilities of supporting such solutions can result in many advantages, especially in terms of employee productivity. Firms that create their own unique applications for Android, iOS and Windows Phone can enable employees to collaborate with coworkers anywhere, and since the cloud is available through the Internet, sharing documents and completing tasks are possible thanks to the cloud's boundless accessibility.
Firms not supporting the cloud, mobility and other technologies may be putting themselves at a serious disadvantage in the near future. In a separate IDC report, Frank Gens, senior vice president at the research firm, asserted that the Third Platform will be responsible for nearly 90 percent of the IT industry's entire growth between 2013 and 2020.
"Companies that are not putting 80 percent or more of their competitive energy into this new market will be trapped in the legacy portion of the market, growing even slower than global GDP," Gens asserted.
