This is by no means an extensive list of everything that will happen in the IT sector this year, but it certainly covers some of the more interesting ones...
 

Consumption based IT services are expected to grow

We already know the service industry is growing and the demand for just about anything to be sold as a service is on the increase. Salesforce and the rise of CRM software as a service is a prime example of this trend and in 2019 it’s expected that ITaaS will grow too.

This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise though, as businesses are becoming more sophisticated in their IT needs and more interested in tailoring their IT to suit their specific needs. That means CIOs and IT managers are interested in greater flexibility and scalability and that’s precisely what ITaaS can offer, so expect to see more businesses offering this as we move forward into the new year.
 

Augmented Reality (AR) will overtake Virtual Reality (VR)  

While virtual reality is probably the more exciting of these two technologies, augmented reality is destined to be the big trend for 2019. Yes, VR is sexier but AR is more practical. VR works amazingly well in gaming and other very niche areas but AR has found many more uses across many more business models and sectors, and that’s why it’s going to be big. It’s more than just cool like VR, it’s actually useful and for businesses that’s what counts.
 

GDPR will create a division among brands

GDPR was big news in 2018, when the deadline for being fully compliant came (and went) in May. Since then Forbes notes that around one third of companies are still not compliant with the GDPR regulations and hundreds of US sites are still unavailable in Europe.

This early divide between companies who have made the effort to get compliant and those who haven’t, is only set to widen as time goes on, highlighting to customers which companies care about and are invested in protecting their data and which companies aren’t. If you’re not already GDPR compliant, now’s the time to pick which side of the divide your business wants to be on.
 

Clouds will connect

Cloud adoption grew considerably over 2018 and will continue to do so over 2019 too. However, what’s going to be different this year is that more and more businesses will start adopting a mix of cloud services, be it public cloud, private cloud or data centres, and as a result these clouds will need to be connected in order to meet business’s changing needs. The term “multi-cloud” is expected to be the new industry buzzword according to Forbes and with it we can expect the demand for secure and streamlined IT to increase.
 

5G is going to take things to the next level

Now 5G has been around for some time now and in 2018, fixed 5G applications officially found their legs and got up off the ground. As a result, we’re expecting 5G to take things to the next level in 2019 as it starts to infiltrate our mobile devices as well. Watch this space.