CRN head to head: “What will be the biggest trends in networking for 2008?"

Kevin Bloch, director of business and technology solutions for Cisco in A/NZ.

The most important trend in networking in 2008, indeed in all of IT, will be the emergence of the “network as the platform” for productivity, profitable growth, resource management and innovation. This trend will play a key role in helping determine success in business as well as in other areas of society (healthcare and education).

One of the most important is in the area of “business communications and collaboration” which includes taking current social networking applications and capabilities into mainstream business to drive collaboration and productivity through Web 2.0, video and Unified Communications. The second trend will be in the area of data centres within which virtualisation will flourish. Virtualisation of resources such as servers, CPUs, storage, switching and appliances can provide significant cost savings as well as support new services and diverse forms of access. The third area is video which will follow both trends above. If there is one overriding element of the Web2.0 generation, it is the use of video, both on the public and private Internet.