Software is the driving force of the world today. With an estimated 9 trillion devices in use, software id the glue that connects people from all around the globe. The software developers that build and develop these software products are shaping and building the modern technological world. The developer population was forecasted to hit approximately 26.4 million by this year. Even after the increasing number of developers, there seems to be a talent shortage.

Change is the only constant on this planet. The software industry is one of those sectors in modern contemporary times that witnesses a constant change in practices due to the ever-growing technological landscape. Software developers and professionals need to keep themselves updated with the latest technologies and innovations in order to compete and get the best possible position and pay.

In recent years, the IT industry has seen tremendous growth. In a report by Gartner in 2018, it is predicted that the IT industry will witness a growth of 8.3% in 2019 in its spending.

Some of the technologies that seem to have the most promising future are:

MIXED REALITY

Mixed reality is a combination of the two twin technologies of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Statista predicts that by 2025 the market size of mixed reality will reach 3.7 billion US dollars.

AR has seen a tremendous amount of growth recently and the credit for this lies solely to its applications on smartphones. The popularity of smartphones is one of the major reasons why companies are hiring AR developers in large numbers and investing in their won AR application.

Many people assume that the applications and the scope of VR are limited to gaming and entertainment. Effective applications by companies and armies around the world have proved this notion wrong. The US Army has used Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed reality technology for military training purposes. Similarly, Walmart is also planning to utilize VR technology to train employees in customer service and compliance.

PROGRESSIVE WEB APPLICATIONS

Progressive web applications (PWAs) are a hybrid of mobile and web applications. They differ a lot from the regular mobile application. The service worker script is an integral part of PWAs on which they majorly work. PWAs have a number of features such as responsiveness, connectivity independent, safe, linkable, etc. The main feature of PWAs includes its offline support, where the application is supposed to be able to work without a connection. These applications can be loaded very fast even with low internet speed. For example, Uber’s PWA was designed to run even on 2G speeds. The core app is a mere 50kB and takes just 3 seconds to load on 2G speeds. PWAs are also very good for customer engagement. Trivago saw an increase of 150% for the people who add its PWA on the home screen. Trivago also observed a 97% increase in hotel offer clickouts owing to the increased customer engagement.

Additionally, they are very easy to develop and maintain. This, in particular, has attracted many mobile developer companies in the past few years.

MACHINE LEARNING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

A total of 91 machine learning deals were carried out last year with the business value of 16.9 billion dollars. According to Deloitte, approximately 100,000 legal jobs will be automated by 2036. Automation and machine learning are here to stay and are going to make a huge difference and change the way organizations operate.

Machine learning allows organizations to customize the customer experience and helps target the company’s efforts. For example, Facebook implements statistical analysis and predictive analytics together to find patterns based on data. It helps Facebook to personalize the newsfeed for each individual, suggest interesting content, posts, and improve user engagement. In addition, Facebook uses neural networks on images to suggest members to tag in the picture.

Artificial intelligence aims to be able to improvise business tasks and makes them simple. The advent and popularity of artificial intelligence has provided the web app developers brilliant support to experiment. This has broadened the reach of AI to sectors like healthcare, banking, education, mathematics, etc.

IoT

Internet of Things (IoT) covers various categories of devices that are connected to the internet and communicate with each other. The applications of IoT are present in both the consumer and industrial domain. In areas such as security and customer experience, IoT is observing exponential growth and demands.

According to David Evan, a former researcher at Cisco, each second about 127 devices are being connected to the internet. This clearly signifies the constantly increasing reach of IoT.

Over 90% of automobiles are estimated to be IoT enabled by 2020. In the coming years, IoT will continue to grow in prevalence and get more sophisticated. From smart cars to in-store smart assistants for customer personalization, the future holds a lot of value for IoT. Enterprises will come closer to an intelligently connected future by embracing real-time visibility.

CONCLUSION

The evolution of software technologies provides a clear insight into the type of developments ongoing in the information technology industry. Developers all around the world are working to improve the convenience and comfort level of humans. With traditional development like Java application development , .NET development, etc. developers need to keep themselves updated with the emerging technologies and trends.

Similarly, it is vital for organizations to adopt these new technologies in order to expand and compete with their competitors. Consultancy companies can provide greater insights into these new technologies and help businesses become a software leader.