We have so much wonderful technology at our fingertips, from smartphones to wearables to new iterations we in the general public probably haven’t even dreamed of yet. But which tech will shape the future the most? According to a recent IBM study: Cloud.
The IBM C-Suite Study is based on interviews with 5,247 C-level executives from 70 countries — a fair sample size, to say the very least — and the tech results, which are infographed above courtesy Statista, are telling.
Cloud computing popped up in 63% of all responses as the tech that will be most important in the next three to five years, followed closely by mobile solutions (61%) and the ever-present and buzzwordy Internet of Things (57%).
Ask again next year, of course, and those results could change markedly, but don’t count on that, because the separation between those three and the rest of the field is striking: Cognitive computing checked in fourth on the list at 37%, followed by advanced manufacturing technologies (28%), new energy sources and solutions (23%), bioengineering (12%) and man-machine hybrids (10%).
Again, polls and surveys are tricky things, seldom perfect, almost always volatile. (Heck, one of the previous IBM C-Suite Studies, published in 2013, pegged cloud third at 64%, behind mobility solutions and business analytics, both at 84% and way down this year. Things change, especially in tech.) But talking with more than 5,000 decision makers from around the world is more accurate than say, asking a couple dozen regular Joes and Janes on the street. The verdict is pretty clear: Investigate (and invest) in cloud if you haven’t already, and have mobile and IoT plans, too.
Don’t miss this tech train.
