As some of you might know, once December comes around, I sit down and take a lookahead at the at the technology that I believe will shape our year.

That article will be released the first week of January so watch this space…

Before that though, I always think it’s a bit of fun to look back at the last 12 months and see how right or wrong my predictions last year actually were.

In a change from previous years, 2022 technology landscape wasn’t as dominated by COVID-19. Instead, we were impacted by other unforeseen challenges such as the war in Ukraine, disaster mini-budgets and the loss of our head of state.

Because of this, some of our forecasts were slightly delayed, but overall, our predictions were pretty spot on. I won’t go into the detail again, but if you want to review our 2022 predictions, click here.

But now, using the powerful tool of hindsight, who exactly were the winners and losers of 2022?

 

Winners

 

Public Cloud

Once again, it has been a huge year for all things cloud technology. IaaS, SaaS, PaaS have, as predicted, accelerated to a new high, despite the critics in the market saying they are unaffordable.

Our customers have moved to the cloud in mass. The key for everyone has been looking at the workload and refining it to be cloud ready. If this is achieved, then workloads are streamlined, and the cloud is undoubtably a success.

The other interesting side effect of the success of public cloud is that the big server producers are all coming out with Hybrid cloud products. This is focused on keeping them in the game for a few more years, with products that allow easy workload migration to the cloud, cross scaling and targeted cloud leverage.

This will only continue in 2023, but my takeaway from it all is that the writing in now on the wall for the traditional server and storage world. HCI and owned equipment for servers is not far behind it.

 

Working From Home

The big companies of the world (mainly in finance) tried to tell us working from home was going to die off in 2022. Did they really believe people would flood back to the office?

This of course did not happen. WFH is here and it’s here to stay, with the focus for IT being on flexibility. The modern employee wants the chance to work where suits them. We are now able to tap into a globally connected market of extremely talented people who have previously been excluded from roles due to geographic location.

With Teams, Zoom, Slack and all the other tools at our fingertips, there is now no reason to not allow complete working flexibility and allow a better work life balance.

This is something that we at Planet IT have openly adopted. Without a doubt, this has seen an increase in people’s overall wellbeing and general approach to work has only gone from strength to strength.

Linux in the Mainstream

Stop right there! STOP!

Before all the IT people of the world lynch me and say “Linux has always been…..” or “Linux is the greatest operating system…..” I am in no way saying that Linux hasn’t been a very viable business operating system for the last 10 years.

Ubuntu as a distribution has been very user friendly and, for a while, even companies like Dell thought it was the future of the desktop consumer OS. Then ChromeOS came along and diverted their attention.

What I am saying is that in 2022, we saw the release of hardware running dedicated builds of Linux which are finally disrupting the market. One of these devices was the Valve Steam Deck, which was so popular this year that pre order took 11 months to fulfil.

However, the key for me is the story behind the hardware which is an operating system free from license costs. This overcomes some of the core challenges Linux has had in the past, compatibility. With this move and Apple’s move in opposite direction, 2023 looks set to be the year more business adopt the platform.

Let’s be honest, most cloud platforms are built around Linux anyway, so it only makes sense!

 

 

Losers

 

Private Datacenters

Déjà vu?

Last year, I said the coffin was ready and that we were about to hold the final goodbye for the private DC. I was pretty spot-on in fairness.

Even though a few hold outs tried to sell a revolutionary approach to private cloud, the final nail in the coffin was the energy crisis. Costs increased and private datacenters had to increase charges to customers. Meanwhile, AWS, Google and Microsoft simply swallowed most of the cost. This left most customers the choice between turning kit off or moving away.

There will always be a place for niche private datacenters for specific use cases, but for 95% of business’ the cloud is the future.

 

Meta

Having an extensional crisis about what the Metaverse is and what their products mean, Meta (previously Facebook) have struggled this year. Loosing revenue from adverts, losing ground to other platforms and heavily investing in Quest and the Metaverse which most people remain skeptical about anyway.

This shift has seen the company slip in its standing and become a bit of an outlier. This alongside a shift by Gen X and Y to TikTok and other faster social platforms is leaving Facebook and Instagram looking dated and doomed to be the next Bebo or MySpace (Sorry Tom!).

Many will say this is a good thing. The power in the hands of these super tech giants with everyone’s data makes governments and individuals nervous. So maybe a few of them shrinking may not upset too many.

P.S I won’t talk about Twitter in this section … because by the time you read anything I put about Twitter, Elon will have made huge changes, maybe renamed or deleted the platform and it will certainly be out of date! 🙂

SaaS Security

Surprised to see this in the technology loser section?

Security, is so important. It is even more important when you’re a company like Last Pass who recently suffered a data breach. They are the last in a long line of companies whose platforms have been compromised in 2022. Therefore, we cannot but think that maybe these big companies need to take platform or software security a little more seriously. This is a common trend and definitely hits my loser list because it shows how even the biggest companies can faulter.

Do better next year big tech, please!

 

The Lightning port

Why!!!??!

Its 2022! Why am I still talking about a micro connector that replaced a 30 pin USB 1 standard?

I will tell you why… because finally the EU has stood up to Apple and told them to get rid! 2022 will be the last year that a £1,400 device comes with a connector which cannot provide fast charging, cannot offer fast data transfer and is proprietary!

Long live USB C or well USB 3.2 or USB4 or Thunderbolt 3 or 4, whatever the standard, just use the same port for a couple of years. This will certainly allow me to cut down on the number of cables I hold onto!

Conclusion

2022, like 2021, and 2020, was a year of change. Technology moves at a lightening pace (except, erm, the lightening port). We had some big winners, some little winners but overall, tech developments are moving quicker than ever. While Moore’s law may be starting to fail, the ability of technology companies to innovate is not.

Do you agree with our technology winners and losers list? What tech impressed you this year? Or what did you see crash and burn?

Comment on my post or DM me on LinkedIn, or email me directly on [email protected] if you would like to debate our choices or even talk about how the Planet experts can help you in 2023