Four unusual (and perhaps unpopular) ICT predictions

Banking on your data
“Who do I trust the most? Probably Internet banking. It would be great to handle my data with the same level of trust. It’d be interesting if banks did something with single sign-on [across more than just banking services]. They already have high levels of secure authentication, so can they do something with secure data storage for me?

“Some of your information is as valuable as your money - for example, online birth certificates or data backups? Maybe I don’t want to put those into the cloud but if I had a secure vault for data backed by the bank, it may be an option.”

(Provided by Sean Casey, enterprise business development manager, Intel A/NZ)

SSD consolidation
“Spinning disks consume enormous amounts of energy, so reducing consumption is a conversation that people want to have. In the future, solid state drives (SSDs) certainly have the potential to hit the green agenda, but more immediately now is the potential to use SSDs to address issues around disk access. Suddenly SSD is coming into the ballpark of being an economically justifiable alternative to have ‘hot‘ data sitting on spinning disks.

"The potential move off spinning disks will be a significant change for the storage industry. The storage market has dislocated many vendors over time. As customers shifted to non-removable types of storage and form factors changed, vendors disappeared. Does the move to SSD mean some of today’s large vendors won’t be in tomorrow’s storage market? It could do.”

(Provided by Noel Pettitt, vice president, South Pacific area, Teradata)

VDI not the answer?
“Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is certainly very interesting but I don’t think its yet compelling. I think there’s still some jostling to be had on whether what sits on a remote site is a very thin browser or a remote desktop client.

“The market has been looking to send applications to the browser rather than VDI for a long time. Customers should consider whether VDI is the necessary way to get the end user experience out there that they’re trying to achieve. I don’t think it’s black and white.

“It appears that everyone is running towards VDI as a solution that’s going to fit in every scenario. I think maybe there’s some balance that could be reached.”

(Provided by Phil Caleno, director of IT at F5 Networks A/NZ)

The last word on videoconferencing (or is it…)
“There’s always a question about whether videoconferencing will become the way in which people hold interstate meetings. I don’t know if it will ever take off the way people think it will, or replace face-to-face contacts.

“The cost of the systems themselves can be $500,000, and interstate bandwidth links are still expensive. You’d have to save a whole lot on flights and accommodation costs [to justify that kind of outlay].”

(Provided by Steve Dixon, managing director A/NZ, Riverbed)

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