by Ronald Louis Peterson

Created on: February 13, 2010   Last Updated: November 27, 2011

Business IT Trends for 2010

Businesses have lots to think about this year in addition to their economic challenges. Major information technology (IT) developments promise to change the way many businesses operate in 2010. These opportunities include the move to cloud computing, the transition to Windows 7 or Azure, the growing influence of social networking, the popularity of mobile computing, as well as the evolving threats to IT systems and business data these developments foster.  And, if all this isn’t enough to think about, a growing army of sophisticated black-hat hackers are working overtime to wreak havoc on businesses worldwide.

Cloud Computing Comes of Age

The days when a business sets up individual computers for every new hire with software and access to the organization’s IT systems are numbered. So are the days of individually upgrading operating systems and software for all employees.  

And, what about internal IT personnel  who monitor their company’s systems for potentially crippling cyber attacks? This responsibility may also be going away in many organizations as businesses take a new IT approach aimed at trimming their operating costs significantly while improving their overall IT performance.

A growing number of small and medium-sized businesses are embracing cloud computing where service providers deliver business applications via the Internet. The adage from a few years ago, “The network is the computer,” is coming true for many more  businesses. The trend is clear and with the technological advances HTML 5 provides this year the lines between web applications and desktop applications will blur and eventually disappear.

In addition to Internet-based computing, cloud services also include low-cost disaster recovery centers which offer more cost-effective storage for backups than traditional archiving and hosting.

But while cloud computing enhances the interaction between application developers and their target markets, it is also unfortunately helping hackers to do their dirty work. One of the trademarks of cloud computing is open architecture. While software developers are opening their applications so their business tools can work with others in the cloud, they are also opening them up inadvertently to hackers as well.

One solution to this dilemma is hosted security. As the name implies, it is security provided via the Internet to filter out attacks before they reach business systems.

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