2023 Predictions: What's Next in Enterprise Technology - SiliconANGLE (2023)

Blockchain technology has garnered a lot of attention in recent years, with many experts predicting that it will revolutionize the way we do business. Despite the hype, however, he has yet to find a solid footing within the company.

According to a senior IT architect in the financial services industry, blockchain is still an open source component that requires a lot of customization and development work to integrate into an enterprise.

However, there are those who believe that blockchain will find a corporate home in 2023. Couchbase Inc. CTO Ravi Mayuram predicts that DevOps will begin to embrace blockchain, specifically Ethereum, within the next year. He argues that newer programming languages, such as Solidity, the Ethereum programming language, are gaining popularity among developers, reflecting the rise of machine learning. While that may be true, it remains to be seen whether or not blockchain will be adopted by the company as a whole.

Erik is more skeptical about the future of blockchain in the company. He argues that blockchain is a niche solution that requires a lot of individual work and is unlikely to see widespread corporate adoption. He also points out that while blockchain is a database ledger, it's not clear why companies would want to switch to a different database ledger when they already have one that works just fine.

In short, regardless of crypto use cases, we anticipate that the lack of proven out-of-the-box solutions, the high level of customization required, and the lack of clear advantages over existing database registries will continue to impede enterprise adoption. of blockchain, except as a niche solution for specific applications in the financial services industry.

Check out the full discussion on blockchain struggles in the enterprise and where you have a chance to gain a foothold.

#8: AWS, Databricks, Google, Snowflake cite data charges; Microsoft keeps it simple; dbt Labs Breaks Legacy Data Preparation Tools

The market for data platforms for analytics, machine learning, and databases is led by Amazon Web Services Inc., Databricks, Google, and Snowflake, and Microsoft makes it easy to do business with its data tools. Snowflake and Databricks are currently on a collision course as both aspire to become the single source of truth in analytics.

We anticipate that open formats and languages ​​that are popular in the data science community will receive strong focus and adoption. For example, Databricks' emphasis on Delta Lake and Delta Sharing points to the traditional domain of Snowflake. Snowflake's adoption of Iceberg and Python allows you to enter key markets served by Databricks. In 2023, these trends will accelerate as both companies look to expand their respective total available markets.

CUBE contributor George Gilbert predicted that dbt Labs LLC will be a new disruptor in the data business because it essentially turns performance metrics into APIs within the data warehouse and simplifies the data pipeline. Additionally, according to Erik, dbt Labs is currently #1 in the data integration market, with an overall net sentiment of 33% for leading data analytics integration.

Google will continue to focus on BigQuery adoption, but customers have complained that they would like to use Snowflake with Google's AI tools, but are forced to use BigQuery.

AWS will continue to assemble your custom data warehouses, use the right tool for the right approach to work, and fill in the gaps.

Microsoft simply makes its products cheap and easy to use, despite some community complaints about Cosmos.

Erik's concern is that Snowflake and Databricks will fight each other, allowing AWS and Microsoft to catch up. He believes that the two companies should stop focusing on each other and think about the overall strategy. He also points out that AWS and Azure are taking a toll on running Databricks and Snowflake. He predicts that Snowflake and Databricks could make some kind of acquisition in the future.

See the full discussion of our predictions on the battle for data platforms.

#9: Automation is making a comeback: Microsoft's UiPath and Power Automate separated from the package

We predict automation will pick up in 2023, and ETR data shows further momentum from spending. UiPath Inc. and Microsoft Power Automate will lead, with UiPath being spun off from Automation Anywhere Inc. However, Microsoft Power Automate has a significant presence with its "good enough" approach.

The focus of automation and robotic process automation is often shifting from back office to back office workloads, with software testing emerging as a key use case. Machine learning and AI are increasingly being incorporated into end-to-end automations. Low code is also becoming more common and serving lines of business. This trend is expected to continue as companies push to automate as much as possible, especially given recent layoffs in the tech industry. However, companies like UiPath and Automation Anywhere are challenged to compete with Microsoft's low cost and ease of use. To be competitive, these companies need to have a 10x better product that offers end-to-end use cases with better performance.

Surprisingly, recent Cowen research in the US and Europe found the following automation-related results:

• Two-thirds of respondents are currently involved in RPA or planning an evaluation in 2023;
• 72% of those deployed or in proof of concept predict an increase in RPA spend. UiPath was the most cited vendor (68%), followed by Microsoft (41%).

Starting at $15 per user per month for Power Automate, Microsoft is unlikely to have fewer RPA implementations. We found that ETR data from over 1,500 respondents shows almost the exact opposite in terms of account presence (60%/40% Microsoft vs. UiPath). But Cowen's data caught our attention. However, companies like UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and the others listed above have much broader enterprise automation agendas and can offer greater benefits; albeit with higher software costs.

Check out the full discussion of our automation predictions.

#10: Traditional tech events are doubling down. Big events get smaller. Digital becomes a first-class citizen

John Furrier provided much of the information for this next one. We predict that the number of physical events will increase dramatically, at least doubling by 2023. This may surprise people, but most big events will be smaller. There are a few exceptions, including AWS re:Invent, Snowflake Summit, Mobile World Congress, and maybe RSA. And there will be some growth, but overall we're seeing a trend towards smaller events and more regional and intimate roadshows.

These micro-events come together and the digital becomes a first-class citizen.

We expect brands to increasingly prioritize earned media and start building their own news networks that go directly to their customers.

See the prediction that business technology events will double by 2023.

Honorable Mentions Bonus Predictions

Erik released the following additional predictions.

Data Preparation Tools on the Verge of Extinction

"I definitely think data preparation tools are on the brink of extinction," he says. He believes this will have a negative impact on companies like Talend Inc., Informatica Inc. and other such names. He sees the problem in the fact that business intelligence tools contain more and more data preparation functions. An example of this is Tableau Prep Builder.

I definitely believe that data preparation tools are on the brink of extinction - Erik Bradley, ETR

Furthermore, it also cites advanced built-in natural language processing. He cited ThoughtSpot Inc., Tableau with Ask Data, and Qlik with Insight Bot as examples. He believes that they all minimize the complexity of data preparation and will continue to improve over time. According to Erik, an average business user can easily query himself using the search bar or just typing what he needs, and these tools do more data preparation.

Knowledge graphs advance in 2023

According to Erik, Neo4j's adoption in the ETR survey is growing and attracting the attention of more and more IT buyers naming it. AWS Neptune is another one where it seems to be gearing up and spending momentum is building there. TigerGraph is also growing in the survey sample.

Knowledge graphs are ready to go.

Real-time streaming analytics will shine in 2023

The prediction here is that streaming analytics will move from the very rich big business to the mainstream and that more people will actually switch to streaming this year. As data preparation tools and data pipelines have become easier to use, the return on investment in streaming is clearer.

Check out Erik Bradley's Bonus Predictions for 2023.

Be sure to let us know how your predictions compare to these. As always, we appreciate the collaboration and contributions of the community.