5 (unsurprising) tech predictions for 2016

One—Appetite for complex, expensive and highly customisable “enterprise software” will decline significantly in favour of generic hosted software-as-a-service solutions. The 2 main drivers for this are (1) data will be very portable between systems; and (2) decision for software purchase and adoption will likely stem from middle-management, rather than from the top.

Two—WordPress will continue to be the default CMS platform for company websites, despite claims from its closest competitors on why their platforms have better architecture, flexibility and power. Much to the dismay of back-end web developers everywhere. WordPress is relatively cheap to build on, does not require heavy hosting infrastructure, and is favoured by web content editors.

Three—Software will actually be easy to use. Research & development in user experience (UX) and user interfaces in recent years is beginning to mature. There is now enough data and tools available openly for developers to freely adopt to make software usable by everyone (and not just tech-savvy users).

Four—Artificial intelligence in applications and services will become a commodity/expected feature. Makers of bespoke software will likely be expected to add Siri-like features as a standard.

Five—A $1B+ tech startup will be born in South East Asia. The authorities, institutional investors and communities have been laying the groundwork in 2014/15 and the conditions are now ripe. However, the startup will generally service the population of that region.