Personal Cloud Services Expected to Rise in 2013

2013 is expected to see a rise in such things as personal cloud services and fit-for-purpose apps for IT, according to a Progress Software executive.

“The demand for purpose-built applications is being driven by how end-users are consuming applications in their personal lives,” Goodson said. “They are using single-function applications like Box.net for storage or Spotify for music and they will increasingly demand these types of easy-to-use, easy-to-access applications in the workplace as well. Take Tableau, for example. It's not like the BI suites of the past that pack several features and functionalities into one application. It is good for visualization and its success is due in a large part to its ability to get certain pieces of information into the hands of enterprise users quickly and easily. We expect that enterprises will look to adapt critical business applications in this way in the coming year.”

Moreover, the industry is entering an “App economy” and applications of 2013 will demand a new way of thinking, Goodson said. The long development cycles of the past will disappear and will be replaced by approaches that build, test, integrate and deploy – continuously. In the cloud, development will change considerably as deployment becomes the key and, with each new requirement, developers will need to be prepared to deliver simple and intuitive APIs as quickly as possible.

“We have a number of new cloud offerings coming in 2013 that will help enterprises get more personal in application development, deployment and management,” Goodson said. “For instance, our new DataDirect Cloud solution is a purpose-built, cloud-based product focused on connectivity. It makes it easy to access all the data being stored across services, SaaS applications and social networks and bring that information back into the enterprise's tool of choice.”

In this new world security remains a paramount concern. Goodson said he expects that next generation application development will focus on resiliency, security and reliability, from the ground up. It will no longer be acceptable to consider security as an after-thought and developers will need to build security features into applications from the start. Users will naturally gravitate towards the concept of “My Cloud,” a safe and secure environment that caters for the specific requirements of their industry ecosystem.

“In 2012, we saw a surge in interest around mobile application development and cloud offerings as businesses worked to determine what, when and how to make investments,” Goodson said in a statement. “2013 will continue down the same path. With enterprises now educated on what they need, they will look to IT organizations to deploy. As such, IT will be pushed to the limits in developing applications that are scalable across devices, are easy to use by a global business audience and, most importantly, that can be deployed quickly and with precise ROI.”