Eight key technology leaders give their insights into what they expect to be the big focus areas in tech in 2023.

New technologies at the forefront

Over the coming year, a number of new technologies will inevitably be coming to the forefront. Many of these have been around for a while, but experts expect further evolutions in 2023. For example, Roman Pavlyuk, Vice President of Digital Strategy at Intellias, believes that 2023 will be the year for 5G: “It will transform the way we live, work, and communicate across the world.”

He explains, “as 5G networks become widely accessible, there will be a quantum leap for a great many technologies and usage scenarios relying on ultra-fast, low-latency internet connectivity. Gone will be the days of needing Wi-Fi routers. 5G will breathe life into a range of new innovative technologies including immersive augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences, connected vehicles and internet of things (IoT) devices that feed large volumes of data to cloud backends and digital twin systems in real time.”

William McKinney, Senior Director, Platform Marketing at Axway, believes that APIs will have the greatest impact over the next year: “2023 will witness widespread growth in partner and public APIs in addition to internal ones,” he explains.

“This move from beyond the enterprise boundary marks a shift from API production to API consumption. Additionally, we will see a shift of APIs from technical interfaces to be more aligned with business functions. Businesses will now focus on results derived from API services for direct or indirect monetisation. Lastly, in 2023, Companies will reduce the total number of APIs they share externally as they shift to API products instead of API interfaces.”

The way businesses store, manage and access their data is also set to evolve. “The notion of ‘data lakes’ is often heard – a massive data repository that an organisation can tap into for review and analysis,” says Skip Levens, Product, Media & Entertainment at Quantum.

“A variation now becoming popular is the notion of a ‘content lake.’ Media-rich companies with multiple sites, often spread across wide geographies, have long struggled with shuttling content — like video and imagery — and its metadata between locations to speed content production. Businesses will lean on Asset Management Systems to natively index content in object-based archives and help shift and consolidate content in a shared content lake, resulting in even large global organisations gaining a ’single view’ across their entire operation.”

Turning to the cloud, the future appears to be hybrid. Andy Slater, Technology Practice Director – Cloud at Node4, explains: “Our research into the future of hybrid cloud from November 2022 revealed that 39% of respondents think they’ll still be running business applications on public cloud platforms in three years, whilst also planning to keep non-cloud technologies for five years or more. This shows that hybrid cloud usage – public cloud plus at least one other infrastructure type – is here to stay for 2023 and further into the future.”

He adds: “Looking to the future, with the right help and support, companies will be able to take full advantage of a hybrid cloud strategy and benefit from all the advantages they were promised at the outset of their public cloud deployments — unified security, backup and recovery, update management, file syncing and monitoring without requiring any further public cloud migrations.”

It’s time to go green

With the economic downturn forcing many businesses to tighten their belts, it might have seemed likely that sustainability would drop off the corporate agenda. However, Rob Gilbert, Managing Director of Commercial & Logistics at Totalmobile, believes that going green makes commercial, as well as environmental sense.

“It is now common to find Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) agendas deeply embedded in organisations’ quarterly and annual budgets. It’s not only important for the environment, but also, it can be the factor that seals the deal with new customers,” he explains. “With the ever-rising cost of services and pressure on margins, it would be easy for organisations to put their ESG strategies on hold. However, ESG and shareholder value should not be competing priorities and it is encouraging to see organisations continuing to see the commercial benefits inherent with ESG moving into 2023.”

“There is a huge push for sustainability throughout the data centre industry. You cannot avoid this, despite the current economic downturn,” agrees Terry Storrar, Managing Director at Leaseweb UK. “Customers are definitely more conscious about this than six months ago and we are finding that even our long-standing customers are asking about credentials and certifications in this area.

“Achieving the best efficiency and being mindful of the power demands we put on data centres is very much front of mind for everyone in this ecosystem. Sustainability is a major talking point and one that has moved up the priority list to be a deciding factor when looking at a provider. Sustainability is fundamentally all about power, so businesses need to focus on harnessing the most suitable technologies at hand to follow environmental guidelines.”

Staying secure

Cybersecurity can never be far from the minds of technology leaders. As attacks continue to increase, this is likely to remain a priority for all technology businesses.

Raffael Marty, EVP and GM of Cybersecurity at ConnectWise, expects this to manifest in increased investment. “78% of business leaders say their organisation is set to increase investment in cybersecurity in the next 12 months, according to research findings of the 2022 Vanson Bourne Report,” he says. “ Meanwhile, the SMB market is predicted to spend much more on cyber detection, response, and automation next year, according to the 2022 ConnectWise MSP Threat Report.”

He continues: “Given the increased sophistication and motivation of attackers, the ever need for integrated cyber solutions, and constantly changing external drivers (technology changes, regulatory mandates, talent shortage, etc.), we expect to see the service business grow in popularity. SOC (and also NOC) services will help MSPs scale their businesses by eliminating repetitive and unprofitable tasks, so that the MSP can focus on high-value, high ROI activities.”

“I suspect ransomware will continue to be the biggest challenge for cybersecurity in 2023,” adds Christopher Rogers, Technology Evangelist at Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “The rising frequency of ransomware attacks has also created a shift in public opinion when it comes to breaches. Organisations are now all too aware that cyber attacks have become an inevitability rather than a possibility – it’s no longer a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ disaster will strike. As a result, more and more businesses are investing significantly more into disaster recovery and backup solutions.

“With recovery being such a priority, CDP (continuous data protection) will be vital for companies in the new year. Backing up data without interruption takes the sting out of ransomware attacks – as data can be restored and operations brought back up and running in seconds or minutes rather than hours or days.”