Amdocs Voices Thoughts from the wider Amdocs team

BLOGGER: NAOMI WEISER

As 2011 draws to a close, which trends should we keep an eye on in 2012?  Here are just a few:

Mobile Augmented Reality –we’ve been hearing about it for a while now, but will 2012 finally be its year?  Augmented reality puts a virtual view on top of your real world, and according to Visiongain, 25% of all app downloads will feature some sort of augmented reality. And even though its adoption will depend on using more powerful, high-speed and camera-ready mobile devices, Mashable’s Lance Ulanoff is confident that “by 2013, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t at least tried augmented reality”. It’s now in games, location apps, ecommerce (Amazon, yet again) for identifying products and then giving you the opportunity to buy them, and coffee shops and could start showing up in cars and even eyeglasses.

Connecting the dots: It’s a connected world – there’s no doubt about that. We’re now accessing content across multiple platforms, browsers, operating systems and devices including the desktop, mobile apps, and Internet-enabled TVs. I personally now own a smartphone, laptop, tablet, e-reader and a home PC (four of which were purchased in the last 12 months) and watch Internet TV, so the news that fifteen percent of U.S. consumers already use four or more computing devices in an average week doesn’t surprise me. And like me, these users want to enjoy a consistent experience and when possible, real-time quality of service, even when the experience is spread over different devices, browsers and platforms – that’s not an easy challenge for the service providers to overcome.

The ever-growing Cloud: (aka the ability to access your information or use a service from anywhere in the world). This year, we blogged about Amazon’s Cloud Player and Apple’s iCloud services, and wherever they go, everyone usually follows. Even if you think you’ve decided not to directly use the Cloud, there is a strong probability that some of your outsourced web services are cloud-based.  From music storage, email services, video conferencing to document sharing and entire office infrastructure and processes, the Cloud offers scalability, potential cost savings and flexibility that can be hard to resist, and service providers like BT are already offering a range of hosted cloud services by leveraging their assets such as data centers and network capabilities. 

Everything’s going mobile: Back in 2010, it was predicted that within five years, more users will connect to the Internet via mobile devices than on desktop PCs. And we certainly appear to be heading that way. From micro payment activities such as swiping phones at NY City Subway ticket barriers instead of using travel cards, or paying for Starbucks coffee using a mobile app instead of debit cards, or Amazon’s price comparison barcode scanner, to major purchases such as using PayPal’s mobile app to buy a new house, it looks as though mobile payments might indeed end up being “the most importance development of the decade”. With the Centre for Retail Research (UK) predicting that by 2015, a quarter of online purchases will be made on mobiles, traditional “brick and mortar” retailers are now scrambling to adapt their business models.

Want to add any others to the list? Will interactive  or 3D TV take off? And what do you think about machine-to-machine technology? (Will you be controlling your home’s security or your healthcare from your smartphone?) Let me know what you think we’ll be talking about in 2012…

And while we’re on the subject of a new year, Amdocs Voices would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy one!