List includes big data, cloud services and IT consolidation


Samsung SDS, the country’s IT services provider, announced its selection of IT mega trends for next year, in order to help different industries prepare for the future.

While categorizing the 2013 mega trends into four categories ― new values, new threats, new creativities and new growth ― the company said the nine elements of next year’s trends are valuable big data, progress in cloud services, IT consolidation, advanced cyber attacks and patents as strategic weapons.

The others are contextual devices and services, smart vehicles, the re-visioning of green IT and rapid business development, according to Cha In-hyok, vice president of the technology strategy planning team at Samsung SDS.

“The reason behind identifying the IT trends is not only to play our role as an IT service provider, but also help others foresee a future that they might not know well,” said Cha.

The IT mega trends, analyzed by Samsung SDS since 2005, are conducted to identify big flows and movements in information and communication technology and its service industry with the assumption that the trends will have an impact on the industry, society and economy within three years.

The three elements ― valuable big data, progress in cloud services and IT consolidation ― are pointed out as new values.

Big data will offer new economic value to enterprises and society itself since the ability to collect and use the data will determine the competitiveness of the firm, government and even the nation, he said.

“It will be critical whether how well the company or government makes use of the data they’ve collected,” said Cha.

In terms of cloud services, more reliable and secure cloud services will be available with the development of network and virtualization technology along with active research in the security of such services.

“The value of cloud services will be enhanced to cut down costs and enable people to utilize the data only when they need to,” he said.

The final element in the “new value” category is IT consolidation, which is expected to occur in both consumer and business IT and in all levels like component and system levels, said company officials.

“Recently, firms like IBM and Oracle have begun offering integrated services to its customers,” said Cha. “The integrated services could fulfill various needs and it could work as a success factor in many aspects of business as well as providing new value.”

For the “new threats” category, advanced cyber attacks and patents as strategic weapons were included with cyber threats now spreading to a wider field with the advancement in technology.

“Highly organized, intelligent and often persistent new cyber attacks are emerging and threatening the entire nation and its infrastructure.”

Public transportation, cars and even smart home networks could become the target of these attacks,” he said. “Businesses and the government must work together to develop a set of comprehensive measures and the individual’s perception on cyber security also needs to be strengthened.”

Patents could also impact other industries since they are being used as strategic weapons for dominance in the global IT industry.

Cha also mentioned that there are companies that specialize in purchasing intellectual property solely for funds collected through patent royalties.

“Some of these firms are not only monopolizing the current technologies but also the next-generation technologies,” he said. “This means that patents could be used as a strategic weapon to attack another enterprise and this must be kept in mind for our local firms.”

Involving the “new creativity” and “new growth” categories, contextual devices and services should be noted with the rapid introduction of innovative user-friendly interface technologies as well as new applications and devices.

Cars will also get smarter with the converged ICT technology that interacts with people and other vehicles.

Re-visioning of green IT and rapid business development, which are in the final category of growth factors, the attempts to curb the use of energy and pollution for environment protection will be emphasized. The use of open-source software, the cloud, social funding and development of new products and business establishment will be possible through rapid business development, according to Cha.

“This will also play a vital role in coming up with fast decisions for more growth in the future,” he said

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)