HDS's top five tech tips for 2014

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has predicted that 2014 will be the year of big data in the Asia Pacific region when the technology finally moves from proof of concept into full-blown production for many companies.

The company said the "cloud broker" model would gain traction. This in turn will see IT departments transform from technology implementers to business innovators. Hence companies will lean more on internal IT groups, as well as systems integrators and third-party service providers to fill the role of cloud-service broker.

HDS said 2014 will also see a renewed focus on security into response to regulatory initiatives across the region. There will be an explosion in unstructured data as 4G and smartphones proliferate.

The vendor also said governments should expect growing competition between countries to establish regional digital leadership.

A separate study by the CMO Council earlier this year suggested the early lead in digital capabilities – at least in the areas of marketing and customer service – belongs to Australia and India, with Korea and Japan proving to be laggards.

Recent research sponsored by HDS and conducted by The Economist's Economics Intelligence Unit found that 70 percent of organisations in the region believe big data adoption will improve their profitability, productivity, and innovation.

HDS Asia Pacific chief technology officer Adrian De Luca said: "Big data, cloud, and data encryption are some of the hottest global IT trends.

"As a region, Asia Pacific has its own unique economic and infrastructure conditions. We believe these wider technology trends will combine with local business drivers to shape the IT and storage landscape in this region in 2014."

Top Five Tech tips from HDS

1. Big data analytics will go beyond the proof-of-concept phase and into production in established markets.

2. As the cloud-broker model gains traction in Asia Pacific, organisations will transform their IT departments from technology implementers to business innovators.

3. Concerns over data security will reach a tipping point, not only for the mobile data that moves between devices and the cloud, but also for data in content repositories.

4. The Asia Pacific region will witness an explosion of unstructured data from mobile communications.

5. Competition between different countries and regions to become the digital hub of Asia will enter a critical stage in 2014.