21 Dec 2018
Technical advancements in the software industry never stop. But do you know which advancements will be trending in 2019? Neither do we, but we can make an educated guess! More organizations will be looking to implement new technologies in 2019 to stay ahead of their competitors. Let’s take a look at the technical trends that we expect to be booming next year.
It seems a bit obvious, about half the tech-industry has been shouting Blockchain for the past few years. And because we have worked in a few blockchain projects during the past year we are somewhat biased. But we really believe that, in 2019, Blockchain will get even bigger! We’ll just have to stop calling it Blockchain.
Since “the banks” have been using the “Distributed Ledger Technology” (or DLT) moniker for quite some time it seems fitting to actually start calling the technology that is based on “a distributed ledger” like it is one..
DLT became popular as the system driving cryptocurrencies, but has spread to healthcare, government, supply chain, manufacturing and other industries. It can be explained as an ever growing chronologically ordered list (or directed graph) of cryptographically signed, irrevocable transactional records that are shared between all involved parties in a network. This takes away distrust in shady companies because a company can trace transactions back to their respective origins.
Want to learn what our nerds did “with blockchain”? Read more about the cases with KLM and Bosch where we’ve employed blockchain to drive solutions that reward employees, or transform a paper-trail into a directed acyclic graph.
Our prediction: In 2019 more organizations will use blockchain for the optimisation of business processing, and more information will be spread about the do’s and don’ts of blockchain. So it moves away from ‘vague technology’ to technology we are going to use day to day.
A sensitive topic, but a very important topic for 2019. We’ve seen organizations struggle with their information security (management) system over the past year. Especially because the subject got more attention when the new privacy legislation became reality.
In 2019 information security becomes more and more important. After the 25th of may, companies haven’t really felt the consequences of the new legislation, but that will change in 2019. The first fines will be handed out to companies and there will be more case law available.
Simultaneously cyber crimes will grow. Hackers are looking for other ways to profit from or damage companies. Private individuals have a clearer opinion about their privacy and security and demand more protection, for example with two factor authentication. All these trends will bring information security to the board room and every new project. Privacy and security by design is the new standard.
Although AI can be found in every prediction list made in the past couple of years, it still returns on ours for 2019. AI is often described as computer systems, but it is actually meant to clone human behavior and do it better than us. Think about speech recognition, recognizing images and making decisions. To make the buzzword bingo complete, AI can not exist without large amounts of data to support (nay drive?) it, so for the sake of completeness let’s throw “Big Data” and machine learning into the mix as well.
AI is almost everywhere and we all use it in our everyday lives. AI is used in smartphones for the assistants, in the navigation systems we use, and in the smart home devices that are becoming more popular by the day. Within organizations AI is, for example, used to schedule trains, assess business risks, making offices smarter, etc.
In 2019 we predict more and more AI into our every day lives and an increase of for example smart speakers. With the introduction of Google home, smart speakers became “a thing”. And in 2019 it will be adopted by the masses as an innovation in every home.
More companies will start with implementing AI in 2019. The correct use of databases, big data and machine learning will optimize processes and we will see the first jobs be replaced by AI in 2019.
Security will not only be about information in 2019. Security will also become important within software development (DevOps) in 2019.
DevSecOps will result in software with code that will be easier to maintain and it will include security from the get-go rather than added afterwards. And since containers became more important in application development, the traditional rules for security are changing as well. Because containers are not made for the standard static security policies and/of checklists, DevSecOps have to make sure security is added into every stage of the application. So DevSecOps will become unavoidable in 2019.
We see a growing use of containers and this will result in more DevSecOps functions within organizations in 2019. It will be interesting to see how organizations implement these functions in their current development lifecycle.
Ofcourse, we can not forget to include no-code development in this list as Betty Blocks is our bro-company.
No-code platforms allows “normal” citizens to build their own applications without having to write code. This can be web apps, websites, mobile apps, etc. These platforms grow in potential each day. Betty Blocks says that everyone can build an app by the year 2023. As user you’ll only need to think about how you want it to look and just put the right blocks in the right places. The coding happens in the background.
These platforms will only grow bigger in 2019 and they will be more accessible for the actual citizen. Companies are looking for ‘easy-to-implement-and-integrate’ software and want to ride the wave of no-code. In 2019 no-code platforms are developing really fast to keep up with this demand and remain accessible. The promise of making no-code accessible for every citizen is a big one and 2019 will show if no-code platforms are on the right way. It will be interesting to see where the development of these platforms will take them in the upcoming year.
We not only write about technical trends, we also lead and implement them. Want to know how we can help you with innovating your way through 2019, get in touch!