Tech Predictions for 2021
By: Don Rippert
Tags: Covid, Predictions, Rippert, 2021, Technology

Overview

You have to start somewhere. This is the inaugural year for Smart Ubiquity’s technology predictions. The focus is on technology but this year macro non-technology issues must be considered first.

Macro predictions

Worst. Year. Ever. Ok, probably not. At least in America there must have been worse years during the US Civil War. But 2020 was a doozy. This too will end.

Prediction #1: By May, 2021 the pandemic aspects of Coronavirus will be in retreat and by the end of the year the pandemic will be behind us.

Infections will continue but not at pandemic levels. People infected during the pandemic may have continuing health issues. However, the second half of 2021 will see a return to post-COVID normalcy.

Prediction #2: The lasting impact of COVID will be an acceleration of pre-COVID trends, not a mass dislocation.

Cities will recover. The main street economy will rebound. Unemployment will fall. However, trends that were already in place prior to 2020 which were accelerated by COVID will continue to accelerate.

Prediction #3: The most significant long term impact of COVID on technology will be the accelerated virtualization of everything.

Remote learning. Online shopping. Virtual doctors. Remote dining: pre-packaged meals delivered to your home. Distributed workforces. Work from home. Curbside pick-up. Zoom parties. All of these trends existed before COVID. Many will see their “high water mark” during COVID: example — remote learning. However, none will go back to their pre-COVID levels in 2021 or beyond.

Technology predictions

The good the bad and the ugly. Technology will be a mixed bag in 2021. Astonishing sophistication in the public cloud. Increased accessibility of AI. The growing scourge of ransomware. The usual vendor-driven hype around technologies that are not ready for prime time. In other words, 2021 will be something of a return to normal.

Prediction #4: The lingering debates around public cloud end.

Accelerated adoption of the public cloud equals improved business results. If “failure is not an option” then failing to aggressively adopt the public cloud cannot be an option either. The pros and cons of the public cloud have been debated for 10 years. 2021 is the year the debate ends. It’s no longer just the elasticity of the infrastructure. It’s no longer just the reliability. It’s no longer just the cost. It’s the capabilities at every level of the technology stack. 2021 is the year that successful businesses accept the reality that the public cloud provides the best software development and operational environment on the face of the planet Earth.

Prediction #5: Lightweight apps, including automation and AI, become more accessible.

The rise of no code / serverless development environments combined with Remote Process Automation (RPA) capabilities and AutoML tools will make the rapid development of sophisticated lightweight applications much easier in 2021. While not a cure for all the ills of monolithic legacy applications this combination of technologies will allow the “digital divisions” of Global 2000 companies to rapidly prototype and implement disruptive applications.

Prediction #6: Modern software development is really hard for incumbent enterprises.

There’s a big difference between accessing the best software development environment on the face of the planet Earth and being able to write next generation applications in that environment. While lightweight apps can be “bolted onto” monolithic legacy apps replacing the legacy apps with modern software is very hard. 2021 marks the valley of despair for many established enterprises trying to heed Marc Andreessen’s advice that “every company needs to become a software company”. Agile methods. Pair programming. Squad frameworks. Microservice architectures. Distributed (NoSQL) databases. Continuous integration. Continuous deployment. Automated testing. Security in a shared responsibility model. These are all aspects of modern application development. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, few established (non technology) enterprises can broadly employ these tools and techniques across their development organizations. Most incumbent companies are falling further behind their “new tech native” competitors. 2020 is the year that reality is accepted. On the positive side, technology services companies that can not only build “next gen software” but help enterprise IT personnel learn to do the same will have a banner year in 2021.

Prediction #7: Ransomware goes critical.

Ransomware is already a big problem but 2021 will see it become THE issue in cybersecurity. The bad guys are upping their game. Spear phishing will evolve to become targeted sophisticated spear phishing. Hackers will employ Remote Process Automation (RPA) techniques (and perhaps elementary AI) to automatically create “deepfake” emails using personal data gathered from social media sites. The pressure on ransomware victims will also increase. The hackers will steal their victims’ data before they encrypt it and demand ransom. They will also publish private or embarrassing data in an effort to secure their ransoms. The trend toward professional negotiators who act as “go betweens” trying to settle the ransomeware incident will continue to increase.

Prediction #8: Work from home exposes security vulnerabilities.

Hackers will attack home networks with inadequate security in search of devices connected to corporate networks. Once inside the home attackers will try to exploit devices using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) / Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access the corporate infrastructure. Employees still using Windows 7 will be especially vulnerable as Microsoft ends support for that popular product.

Prediction #9: Cyber-attacks against mobile and IoT devices increase.

Working from home has increased the importance of the smart phone as a business device. Yet businesspeople using mobile phones for work rarely install malware detectors. Hackers use apps with embedded malware and spear phishing attacks to compromise mobile phones. Meanwhile, IoT devices attached to the home network will be an increasingly attractive target. 2021 will see more IoT based attacks like the Reaper IoT Botnet attack described in this eSentire security advisory.

Prediction #10: Vendors and the technology media will continue to amp up interest in exotic technologies that will not be ready for prime time in 2021.

What’s new? While these technologies are worthy of experimentation, they will not solve significant business problems for enterprises in 2021. Blockchain. Virtual / augmented reality. Edge computing. 5G. Embedded AI. AIOps. Many, if not all, of these technologies will eventually mature into high value capabilities businesses will exploit for profit. Just not in 2021.