As you might have already known, 2020 was a year like no other. Covid-19 has in a way forced a lot of companies and organizations to review their digital strategies, and at the same time manage new technical challenges. All this, on top of of the health crisis.
Because of the situation we’re in, software development services are now more important for a company than they’ve ever been. Businesses are relying on the expertise of software developers to help them improve their customer experiences and performances.
But as 2020 comes to an end (thank god), the year 2021 promises new innovations and trends – in many ways, it will be the start of a new era. In this article I will try to walk you through some of those trends which I believe will influence software development over the course of the next year and beyond.
DevSecOps: The Rise
According to my observation, any best practice for transforming the IT infrastructure should include DevSecOps.
Dev teams should employ a continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) solution that will check for security errors, at all times, from build to deployment. For companies, in their digital journey, it is becoming a must to migrate to microservices. If may have been a choice until now, but in the future it will not be a choice anymore. DevSecOps will be on the rise, especially when organizations move to multi-cloud environments.
Native apps will dominate the market
As it is now, native application development is unparalleled, but going forward, people can expect this trend to dominate software development services.
These services are meant to run only on devices that are specific, for example only on smartphones. Native apps usually provide a powerful performance and better user experience compared to hybrid apps, given the fact that they are designed only for specific devices.
It doesn’t look like the native app will go down any time soon, definitely not in 2021 or in the near future, given the fact that the popularity of iOS and Android operating systems is growing each day.
Cloud technology is here to stay
Did you know that in 2020, the cloud services industry generated almost $40 billion in revenue? Now cloud service’s market value is 266.5 billion, which is a 17% growth increase from 2019 – crazy growth, in just one year.
In the software development industry, it is a well established fact that the big money is in cloud services. In 2021, cloud vendors such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft will continue to invest big money in cloud technology.
The reason behind this is simple. The number of companies using cloud services is quite enormous, and that number is only going to get bigger. Whatever the size of the organization – from large enterprises to small and medium business – they all at some point will be moving to cloud services. It’s no surprise considering cloud technology offers flexibility, scalability, and (in some cases) security that can help prevent the threat of ever-present hackers that could lead to a security breach in your organization.
5G Technology will be unparalleled
In the beginning of 2020, 5G technology made a lot of waves, when it was (undeservedly) accused as the cause of the coronavirus outbreak. This rumor was disapproved by many of the world’s biggest scientists and, luckily, has been left behind in 2020. Software developers can expect that 5G tech will again return as a trend – now for all the right reasons. 5G technology is roughly 100 times faster than 4G networks. The tech experts predict that by 2023, 1.4 billion devices will be 5G capable.
Virtual reality, augmented reality, and other 4k video streaming programs are the reasons why 5G tech was specifically designed. Software developers will find this technology useful, especially if they are interested in creating designs and features that can enhance a businesses’ performance.
Investment in Artificial Intelligence will increase
We cannot deny the impact of Artificial Intelligence in the software development world. It will offer so many more options. Artificial Intelligence-based analytics are already being used by the tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple. Now AI is progressing at a very fast pace and in 2021 it will likely be used to help aid in decision-making and delivering relevant user experience details among other ways.
Software development will dominate the tech industry in 2021 and beyond, that is for sure. And the businesses that are paying attention to the trends and finding ways to adapt them into their own processes will come out on top.
Note: This blog article was written by a guest contributor for the purpose of offering a wider variety of content for our readers. The opinions expressed in this guest author article are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect those of GlobalSign.
