Rackspace APAC Predictions 2015

The Rise of DevOps - The need for development and operations to work together to deliver solid business outcomes will be at the top of Asia-Pacific enterprises agendas in 2015.While North America and the UK have been early adopters in DevOps, next year it will pick up steam in Hong Kong and across Asia-Pacific. In fact, according to a recent Rackspace survey that polled 700 technology decision makers in the US, UK and Australia, it found that over three quarters (77 percent) of the respondents said they were familiar with term DevOps, with 55 percent having already implemented DevOps practices. While adoption is minimal in Asia-Pacific, this will change in 2015, as DevOps becomes more and more critical to all organizations.

Big Data for Advanced Analytics - With the continued rise of social media, mobile, and M2M, there is no stopping the growth of big data. This past year, Rackspace has seen decent investment from Asia-Pacific companies looking to manage and analyze their data, with companies investing in ObjectRocket, a MongoDB database as a service (DBaaS) provider, to do so. However, the focus on big data analytics is minimal compared to the US, UK and even Australia. What we’ll see in 2015 is a greater emphasis on effectively analyzing big data, using it to extract value and make more informed business decisions that boost the bottom line.

Support Dominates the Cloud Discussion - While IT support in relation to cloud computing bubbled-up in conversation in 2014, it will be the dominant discussion next year. Just as there was an IT outsourcing wave in the early 2000s in which hundreds of IT professional services functions and organizations were created around IT support, this will happen again in the coming year, as more cloud computing companies invest in creating support around the cloud. Companies are increasingly looking for an IT partner to help them scale, manage and monitor their clouds, allowing them to focus on growing their core business as opposed to handling IT issues. At Rackspace, support has always been a core focus of our business, however, it will heighten even more in 2015, as our Managed Cloud offering takes off even further.

Mobile-first strategies take hold - Asia-Pacific is driving the mobile sector globally, already accounting for nearly 55%of the global mobile phone ownership total – some 2.5 billion users. This trend for growth shows no sign of slowing. In 2016, Asia-Pacific is predicted to account for 57.7% of the world’s mobile phone users. On top of this, Rackspace’s recent mcommerce survey found that 84% of consumers in Asia-Pacific are using their smartphones to browse on a weekly basis. What this means is that companies cannot put mobile on the backburner anymore – it must be at the top of the business agenda. In 2015, we’ll see more companies invest in building premium mobile experiences for their customers - experiences that are built on speed, security and reliability to drive traffic and retain customers on their sites.

Traditional industries turn to the cloud - Asia Pacific is the largest regional M2M market accounting for almost 40% of global M2M connections, and has recorded the largest gain since 2010, with 51 million net additions over the last three years. The continued rise of the Internet of Things and M2M will further enable the wearable revolution powered by the cloud. However, in the coming year, we will see more traditional industries leverage the cloud as a business priority. We’ve recently seen GE’s push to develop an industrial cloud that will help enterprises collect and use data from many types of GE equipment, but this is only the beginning.