Well, well, well… 2017 came to it’s catastrophic end and now it’s time for 2018. In the new year’s post-apocalyptic landscape will be very special for developers as it’ll provide them with new possibilities of growth and personal development. 2018 is the year when many technologies will become commercially viable, while others will go mainstream. We’ll be able to see various forms of immersive development that will allow inanimate objects to come alive. New technologies mean new Software that, in its turn means, demand for new specialists. However, talk less, do more. Let’s look at the most probable software development trends that will dominate in the next year.

Blockchain is #1

In 2017, Blockchain became one of the most popular topics. And probably, in our contemporary world, everyone must have heard about blockchain. This is because of the insane rise of bitcoin. Many experts are sure that this technology is capable of revolutionizing every industry. In the next year, we may be able to see the first efforts at this disruption through business-class blockchain platforms.

In 2017, some of the technology corporations presented their own blockchain platforms. One of the most advanced is IBM. In order to put blockchain to use, they currently start collaborating with food distributors, banks, and government regulation services. Nevertheless, such companies as Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon are keeping up and more and more companies start joining “the dark side” of the blockchain.

But what does it actually mean for the software industry? Many businesses will start investing in the blockchain software development. Consequently, there will be a demand on developers who are qualified enough in it. In its turn, developing blockchain platforms is not an easy task and that’s why such specialists are quite expensive.

Blockchain applications will help you build absolutely new and more efficient business processes. Anyway, it’s not that simple and you’ll have to expend some efforts to start reaping fruits of your labour.

iOT Is Getting More and More Widespread

In our contemporary society, everyone has several devices, at least a smartphone. In one of our episodes, we’ve already talked about iOT and the way it may influence on our life. Imagine an alarm clock that is capable of synchronizing with your coffee machine and ensuring that your morning coffee will be at the right time. It’s pretty captivating, isn’t it? Such devices collect an enormous amount of information and make IT companies find various methods of effective and relatively cheap ways of data processing. That’s why many experts are sure that in the next year the edge computing will be playing a highly important role. The main goal is to provide faster real time analytics, especially in places with poor internet connection.

“Edge computing is a way of optimizing cloud computing systems by means of performing data processing at the edge of the network, near the source of the data.”

Edge computing will allow many companies to save time and money that needed to port all the data to a centralized data center.

Nevertheless, the cloud will be still very important as its goal is to collect critical data and perform analyses on this great amount of data as well as connecting devices with each together.

Undoubtedly, edge computing with the cloud will contribute to better analyzing and managing our data.

The second cause of iOT popularity is the consumer market. That’s because consumer market requires more innovative and technological ways to become popular in a very saturated industry. And the up-to-date technology may help them in doing this. This explains why software that is needed for the products working on the iOT technology will be so popular.

The Wearable Market

According to eMarketer report, Americans are buying more and more wearable devices with each year. The report also predicts that the number of these devices will be constantly growing, The expected target number of Americans using wearables in a few years will be (wait for it…) 81.7 million devices!

Despite the fact that the Apple Watch is highly successful in this market, there is a number of other growing trends of wearable devices. As a result, people will need specific software for various kinds of wearable devices, such as fitness wear, camera equipment as well as virtual reality products.

Products of this kind require intricate algorithms to function properly. Consequently, this will ensure the growth of the wearables software market.

Artificial Intelligence

Nowadays, adopting artificial intelligence became a necessity. All of our smart devices with voice-activated virtual assistants, Big Data will all influence on on AI adoption. In its turn, it’ll again require new specialists who are capable of developing AI software. Consequently, the demand for AI specialists, as well as Chief Data Officers (CDO) will explode in 2018 and beyond.

Artificial intelligence may become crucially important for the business world. Even now, the early adopters of this technology are still reaping substantial gains. For example, JP Morgan developed an artificial intelligence software that is capable of managing contact portfolios with commercial clients. And it turned out that machines can solve such challenges much faster than humans. And this is only one of many examples. Imagine how will AI may be able to change our life and you will understand the scope of this technology.

Virtual Reality

In 2017, Virtual Reality headsets have been the center of attention, though not everyone decided to buy himself a headset. One of the main reasons is the high price for VR headsets. Anyway, it didn’t interfere HTC Vive and Facebook’s Oculus Rift with selling of fewer than 1 million units.

In order that VR will become mainstream and a part of our lives, the manufactures will have to take into account such factors as lower prices, universally appealing content, as well as better and more comfortable gear.

And both HTC and Facebook have already distilled this secret and start making big moves to expand markets. As for examples, both companies have considerably reduced prices on their VR headsets as well as improving their quality. The next models should be lighter with at much lower price. This should attract new customers and enlarge audience. Facebook revealed that their headset Oculus Go will start at $199.

The initial focus of Virtual Reality was to attract hard-core gamers though all the gamers are still not enough to support the entire Virtual Reality Ecosystem. As a result, we can expect to see more animated, immersive VR technology in 2018 in order to significantly enlarge VR audience.

Cybersecurity

No surprise that the expiring year was not great for private information on the web. For example, we of us remember the incident with WannaCry. When on 12 May 2017, WannaCry starts affecting computers around the whole world. The initial infection was likely through an exposed vulnerable SMB port, rather than email phishing as initially assumed.

Businesses should take into account the cybersecurity initiatives both internally and externally. This means that internal initiatives must be focused on building security into their software. As for example, DevOps may add automation security testing into the software development life cycle. Some experts are sure that over the next 5 years the global spending on cybersecurity products and services will exceed $1 trillion. But the main problem is not in the investment but in the lack of specialists. As we’ve already mentioned in the previous examples, there will be a need for people who are specialists in their field and have an understanding of cybersecurity software development.

The Bottom Line

New year — new possibilities! What surprises did 2018 prepare for us? Anyway, we must be ready for new impressions and innovations in the IT world. In reliance on many experts opinions, we made a list of the most probable software development trends that will dominate in the next year. Are you ready for this? Tell us your ideas. What’s your view?

Software Development Trends of 2018 was originally published in JetRuby on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.