Social, Mobile, Analytics, and the Cloud Together Are the Future of IT
Every so often, sweeping changes come as part of IT’s constant evolution. Now, after the eras of the mainframe, mini-computing, the PC and client server, and the web, some say we are experiencing the fifth wave of technology: the increasing awareness and implementation of SMAC—or social, mobile, analytics, and cloud technologies.
Individually, each of the pieces of the “SMAC stack” are not new to us. However, what is changing now is the use of these four elements together as an integrated ecosystem, rather than as separate silos.
Although this update may seem simple, the intricacies and complexities involved at architectural and engineering implementation levels will soon make this a niche that software engineers will need to specialize in. Such an implementation will have to be evaluated from two angles:
- Incorporating SMAC in a new application that is being evaluated from scratch
- Integrating existing disparate pieces of the stack together and filling in any gaps
For example, an application that is already in the market may have social, mobile, and cloud presences but be lagging behind on its analytics intelligence. The SAP software corporation already has a strong presence in the mobile, analytics, and cloud space and is trying to fill its social gap. Businesses will take a few years to ensure they have a strong presence in all SMAC areas, and that is when the industry will reach a steady state.
Experts predict SMAC to be the future of enterprises. Some even say it will turn out to be a paradigm shift in the future of enterprises.
Despite all this exciting growth, SMAC is still at a crossroads. Because the integrated technology is still not mature enough, the industry at large has questions about whether the focus should purely be on the integration or whether individual pieces need their scope and attention too.
Though they are eager to robustly develop their SMAC technologies, organizations are still working within tight time and cost constraints. While it would be great to engineer and test SMAC at individual and integrated levels thoroughly at the same time, teams have to arrive at the right strategy to balance the coverage.
Still, SMAC seems to be the next step down IT’s evolutionary road. Enterprises will have to perfect themselves and mature in this space to give themselves a visible market edge.
