The Affinity Team's Predictions for Technology in 2020
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As a managed service provider for organizations intent on growth in the booming Nashville market, our eyes are always on the future to discern the coming trends that may affect our clients. As 2019 comes to an end, we wanted to share our team’s predictions for what changes and continued trends we might see in 2020.
We hope these predictions may help you as you consider your plans for 2020—and that you have as much fun reading them as we did writing them!
Sean Wright, Founder & President
In 2020, I expect to see more small and mid-sized businesses begin to adopt advanced cyber security tools that were previously only available to enterprises and government agencies. Advances in technology and market disruption have made tools such as next-generation threat detection, which uses AI and machine learning to prevent cyberattacks, a viable options for small and mid-sized businesses—who at the same time are increasingly targeted by cyber criminals.
I also expect to see a continuing trend of maturing businesses seeing technology as an opportunity to leverage to help them continue to grow. We’re having great conversations with business leaders who no longer see technology as a budget line-item but rather as a true competitive advantage for their companies.
Michael Maxwell, Manager of Technical Sales
In 2020, I think the technology “as a service” trend will continue to grow. Eventually, the majority—if not all—technology will be sold this way to match the model of Microsoft Office 365, Amazon’s AWS, etc.
In consumer hardware, I think new small wireless accessories like the Apple Watch and Apple AirPods will continue to grow to help enhance the experience of the supercomputers in our pockets (a.k.a. smartphones).
In social media, I think that Snapchat will continue to be adopted by parents and grandparents, forcing teenagers to switch to a “new” social media chat app.
Jeremy McNutt, Virtual CIO
I predict that 2020 will present a battle between usability and security. With growing concerns on multiple fronts around cyber security threats, I expect to see a significant push for increased security practices, particularly around email. I also anticipate seeing a surge of threat detection tools from various vendors being broadly adopted. In addition, I expect multi-factor authentication for all accounts from business to personal to become a default setting.
However, security advances often come with a more cumbersome user experience, and I expect to see a balancing increase in tools that provide single sign-on. While security is critical, so also is efficiency and workflow. Single sign-on tools provide an opportunity to enhance security while also minimizing user complexity.
Seth Sanders, Systems Administrator
A trend I think will pick up steam in 2020 is 5G—a framework for faster cellular data service. It may take a few years for 5G to be fully rolled out and for device vendors to get on board, but I do think it will start to gain some traction in 2020.
I think we’ll also see some interesting developments in personal computing devices, including smartphones and tablets, from new foldable screen technology that’s being developed by vendors such as Lenovo.
I also think we’ll see continued growth in IoT devices. It will shape up to be one of the most interesting years for mobile technologies even if the products don’t make it to market this year. The expansion of tech companies and telecommunications into new partnerships will help to bring about some amazing possibilities.
Charles Latham, Support Team Lead Engineer
2020 feels like it’s primed and ready for drone delivery. We’ve started to see that from FedEx and Walgreens, but I think there will be an ever growing push from the likes of Amazon and other major retailers.
Smart assistants are poised for some real enhancements. Their accuracy with voice recognition has improved dramatically—enough so that they’re ready for more complex interactions. The technology has improved to the point where the device could understand conversations as opposed to individual commands. Follow up questions could connect to previous queries for a more “real” feel to the interaction.
I also predict that, in 2020, 5G—the “next generation” wireless framework that’s set to be a huge improvement on 4G LTE—will disappoint. 5G is a really complex evolution, and with everyone vying for ownership of that space, it’s looking like vendors will push out the tech prematurely in select markets and may fail to penetrate the market. There might be 5G phones released, but the actual framework’s adoption will be much slower than 4G—so much so that many of us will not see 5G in the year 2020.
Kevin Foster, Systems Administrator
In 2020, I feel like we’ll see a continuation of some of the trends that the tech community has seen over the last few years, with some of them actually coming to fruition. For example, I think augmented reality—the use of technology to visually overlay information on displays of the real world in front of us—is poised for big advancements with smartphone technology. I also think 2020 is a year when we’ll see deeper integrations between our cars and our technology, with advances in integrations such as CarPlay and with smart assistants such as Amazon Echo.
Ben Long, Technical Alignment Administrator
In 2020, I believe that we will see a shift in the way that cyber security is approached. As outside threats continue to increase, I predict we’ll see a wider adoption of a proactive approach to stopping threats before they wreak havoc on an environment. Specifically, cyber security safeguards will increasingly incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence to help shed light on what is normal activity so that we know the second something isn’t quite right rather than when the damage is already done. This technology will make a huge impact for businesses that adopt it, as major breaches will be caught before they occur—and business owners and executives will likely sleep better at night as a result.
John Bannister, Technical Alignment Administrator
In 2020, I think more companies will continue to move towards cloud based computing and storage like AWS and Microsoft Azure. I can see things trending toward a hybrid environment with cloud based products and on-premise equipment that strikes an excellent balance between scalability and flexibility.
I also think we’ll see more adoption of blockchain technology. In an era when “deep fakes” and “fake news” are becoming more pervasive, I imagine that we will need to rely on technology like blockchain to authenticate content like news, photographs, and video.
I would also like to see a greater reliance on solar energy. In order for this to happen, we would need to see a decrease in cost of materials. Polysilicon, the primary raw material used in solar panels, is extremely expensive. I believe that in the coming years we will discover a cost-effective compound that will deliver the same yield as polysilicon, paving the way for a more widespread adoption of solar energy.
Henk Crafford, Systems Administrator
In 2020, I think Microsoft’s MyAnalytics will mature and other similar packages will emerge to make employees more effective, allowing businesses to optimize employees’ work habits and time management.
I also think we’ll see further development in and a wider adoption of IoT and robotics. New developments in these areas are making devices and robots easier to program—meaning that greater utilization is possible even for people without programming knowledge. This is sure to lead to wider adoption and interesting possibilities both in the business and consumer spheres.
Finally, I think we will continue to see a rise in the popularity of programming in education at all levels—and in all subjects. With programming being such a good skill in the modern workforce, and with so many new educational tools, like MIT’s Scratch, being developed, I think we’ll see programming begin to be used to teach other subjects, like using the Scratch platform to create an interactive story in English class or to create a presentation in science.
Alex Taylor, Systems Administrator
I don’t see any signs of the trends started in recent years to stop or slow in 2020—not the least among them being the ongoing shift towards cloud services replacing typically on-premise servers, software-as-a-service replacing software-as-a-product, and workflows changing to include mobile devices as a supplement or replacement for traditional laptops and desktops. This doesn’t come without a dark side, though, and as a consequence, cybersecurity will continue to be a hot topic. As we invest more and more of our data and livelihoods with technology vendors, their posture and track record on security will prove to be more important than the other specifics of their service offerings.
The biggest potential shake-up, though, is the posturing that both Apple and Microsoft have been making towards shifting away from x86 processor architecture, which has essentially been the only type of desktop (and laptop, and server) processor for closing on 50 years. Both seem to be interested in shipping their software products on other architectures – most notably ARM, the type of processor that phones and many tablets use – and importantly, in a way that allows software designed to work on x86 continue to function. This has potential to blur the lines between traditional desktops and laptops and mobile devices in very exciting ways, such as dockable phones instead of laptops, multi-day laptop batteries, and wearable augmented reality devices.
