Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2016.  Read them in this 8th Annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed by Peter Tsai, IT Analyst at Spiceworks

Precognition: What IT pros collectively predict in 2016

Foreseeing the future is far from an exact science, but when we put our collective minds together we can often get an accurate glimpse of what's to come. At Spiceworks, we don't employ a fortune teller with a crystal ball to forecast upcoming tech trends, but our data team and network of IT pros is even better at foreseeing the future. Reason? Millions of IT professionals use the Spiceworks Community, and many of them participate in surveys that give us great insight into their collective plans for the future.

So what will happen in 2016? Behold our tech predictions for operating systems, emerging tech, and security with supporting charts and data!

Operating systems predictions for 2016

Windows 10 made a big splash in 2015. The hype was huge and the free upgrade offer made big waves. But will IT departments actually make the leap in 2016 or was it all just talk?  In the Spiceworks report "Windows 10: Will it Soar?" we talked to more than 500 IT pros, and 40 percent said they'd adopt Windows 10 within a year of launch. A whopping 73 percent said they'd use the OS within two years.

Our follow-up survey 10 weeks after Windows 10 launch confirmed those big numbers, as 11 percent of companies were already using the OS, putting it well on track to become the most quickly adopted Windows OS ever.

In contrast, when we asked more than 300 IT pros in Spiceworks about their plans for Microsoft Windows Server 2016 adoption, the feeling wasn't quite the same. Only 17 percent of IT departments said they'd use Windows Server 2016 within a year of launch (expected for early 2016), showing that the race to WS2016 will be run more like a marathon instead of an all-out sprint.

Emerging tech adoption in 2016

Sticking with Microsoft Server 2016 for a minute... if you read a lot of tech press, you might assume new OS features aimed at achieving greater efficiency like containers (Docker in particular) and Nano Server are all the rage among IT pros.  Our data tells a different story. We found that IT pros care more for upcoming virtualization and security features, in addition to relatively new software-defined storage technology, such as Storage Spaces Direct and vSAN, which is increasingly on IT departments' radar as a shared virtualization storage alternative.

In terms of other IT tech adoption, Spiceworks' 2016 State of IT report shows that in addition to server virtualization, mobile, security, software-as-a-service, and application virtualization are at the top of the charts, with advanced security solutions showing the biggest percentage point for planned adoption in 2016.

Security spending trends in 2016

Speaking of security, according to the Spiceworks report "Battling the Big Hack," the top IT security solutions that organizations plan to increase spending on in 2016 include intrusion detection, content filtering, firewalls, VPN, anti-virus, and encryption. Penetration testing and advanced threat protection solutions also rank on the list, although slightly lower.

Last but not least, some future trends are the same as they've ever been. From that same security report, IT pros told us that their number one IT security challenge they expect to face in 2016 will be-you guessed it-users. Lack of end-user knowledge combined with end-user resistance will continue to be a thorn in the sides of IT pros looking to secure corporate networks. This continues a frustrating trend that has probably been around since computers were invented. At least it makes for interesting stories to share with other IT pros.

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About the Author

Peter Tsai is an IT Analyst at Spiceworks. Formerly a SysAdmin, programmer, and server engineer who has lived IT from the inside and out, Peter now works to serve up IT articles, reports, infographics, and livecasts that inform and entertain millions of IT pros in the Spiceworks Community worldwide.