Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2017. Read them in this 9th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Adam Levithan, Jai Dargan and Paul LaPorte, Metalogix
A Collection of Metalogix Predictions for Content and Collaboration in 2017
In the content and collaboration world, we might
have easily themed 2016 as the year of Microsoft SharePoint 2016. Now, here we are in 2017 - a year that is
already showing us that the evolution of content and collaboration continues as
the industry faces new challenges, devises new solutions, creates new best
practices and companies merge together.
Here are three of Metalogix's top predictions for 2017:
A Year of
Refinement in Microsoft Office 365
By Adam Levithan, Director Product Management
We've seen a dramatic increase in the launch of
new solutions from within Microsoft Office 365. All of them stuck. Ranging from
Groups, Planner, to PowerApps and Flow, these solutions have established
themselves in the marketplace and are seeing growth in adoption. While there
still may be acquisitions and new solutions coming soon, I'm predicting that
2017 will be the year of refinement for Office 365. The product teams are now
practiced in reviewing UserVoice - which allows users to post feature requests
and vote on submissions from others - and posting new features on
the Office 365 Roadmap to increase transparency
of what's coming. So maybe I'm cheating a little, because I can look at the
roadmap, but a benefit of the cloud is new features, and this year you'll see
the little things start getting sharper and even more usable.
A Major
Breach Will Occur - On Par or Exceeding Sony, Yahoo, and OPM
By
Jai Dargan, Senior Director of Product
Management
Data breaches are inevitable, which makes my
prediction a certainty. We've seen some significant data breaches over
the past three years: Sony, Target, JP Morgan, United Health, and the Office of
Personnel Management. I predict another "black swan" type breach to affect a
major Fortune 100 organization, but this time, originating at a cloud-based
content repository, resulting in exposure of sensitive personnel information,
intellectual property, and/or emails.
The Year
Open Source Collaboration Gets Glued Together
By
Paul LaPorte, Director of Products
We've heard a great deal about shadow IT - a
collection of (typically) open source solutions users bring into the workplace
to improve collaboration and productivity. These solutions are often point
solutions that solve a particular pain point not well addressed by
collaboration platforms. However, they are frequently islands of productivity,
limited in interoperability with other tools. These tools range from EFSS
solutions like Dropbox, web-based email programs like Gmail, task management
tools like Asana, social media tools, discussion tools like Discus, and dozens
of other categories. Just as Oracle unleashed the power of the data driven
enterprise in the 1980's, knitting together separate islands of data, 2017 will
see the rise of new connective solutions that effectively knit together open
source cloud services and tools, allowing them to interoperate and share
content. Content of all types, now freed from its islands, will float more
effectively wherever and whenever needed by users.
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