After living through the ordeal of the pandemic, the world finds itself in the last phase of 2022. The most visible paradigm shift in the past years was the increased reliance on digital services and infrastructure. This was, of course, motivated by necessity during the pandemic and beyond, leading to changes and innovations in software development.
It drove the day-to-day dealings and events to change. Today’s modern companies and workers realize that the internet is an outstanding source to procure everything from Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to helping companies remain active and accomplish their events, such as virtual graduation ceremonies or weddings, in a time of social distancing.
With the heavy increase in internet usage, the areas of the internet that still need improvement became quite apparent as well, along with the need for newer, faster, more secure software. This massive use of the internet showed the strengths of the current setups for many companies but also revealed lots of areas where changes or advancements could significantly improve things.
Increased adoption of cloud infrastructure
Beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt, spending on the cloud has already increased and will only continue increasing. Over the course of the next few years, cloud spending will span over half of all expenditures on IT products. The biggest reason for this shift is that virtualized infrastructure and tools provide a more agile experience for many user needs. With recent developments in this paradigm, it’s pretty interesting to note that cloud usage is still evolving.
It all started with the introduction of dynamic virtual machines hosted on the cloud. It was quite a powerful solution commonly known as Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS. However, it was just the first design on a vast and evolving canvas. The next step in this domain will be Platform as a Service (PaaS) and serverless functions as the virtual infrastructure allows the users to innovate and develop high-end solutions.
Automation of processes
Process automation is rapidly on the rise. Coordination of the processes teams use to develop and build programs is pivotal for their ability to provide the best-built software to users. Every business has different requirements, so there is value in distilling what works well and capturing it in solutions that work for teams of all sizes and types.
Currently, many Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) solutions, dependency management tools, and frameworks for testing are great examples of where process automation is helping take the burden off of the shoulders of the developers. Version control and GitHub-like tools are also a part of this category. This area will definitely be of great focus in the coming times.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning
Many companies already utilize the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – and time will only allow for the realization of its full potential. Integration of AI, especially in the space of software development, is already crucial.
Integration of AI into existing technologies provides:
- A meaningful platform for making better-informed decisions
- Enhanced efficiency
- Better automation
- An enhanced digital experience
AI adoption is currently accompanied by cloud computing and Kubernetes. Kubernetes allows developers and businesses to run their applications on a multi-cloud system. Generally, cloud technologies enable users to scale up their businesses and provide chatbots and other interactive services.
Cybersecurity
Shortly, the industry will witness a rapid rise in changing demands of cybersecurity. Since businesses have entered a web of interconnected digital arenas, they can no longer ignore cybersecurity threats. Criminal activities in this domain are causing businesses up to $6 trillion in losses yearly. This is why developers and customer companies must move away from traditional cyber protection measures such as firewalls and anti-viruses towards new ways of protection.
Faster prototyping and innovation
Software development isn’t always predictable. By nature, it’s volatile and yields quite tough competition. Individuals and firms in this industry must constantly innovate. Otherwise, they’ll get wiped out of the sector via more rapid prototyping and generally more innovative ideas. In the coming years, software development firms must develop a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. They can achieve this by compensating employees accordingly and creating avenues for software development. Businesses that fail to do so or limit innovation will risk losing their competitive advantage.
Development of cross-platform solutions
Cross-platform development will exponentially increase in the coming years. There are many challenges attached to the development of solutions that are either “iOS only”, “Android only” or “Windows only”. Because of this, software development companies are now making a shift towards cross-platform development. With the inception of innovative technologies, cross-platform development supports different platforms with a single code base. This will drastically reduce the need for additional resources. Cross-development capabilities will also have a huge economic impact, saving developers a substantial amount of time and resources.
User experience design
User Experience Design (UXD or UED) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a software product by improving its usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided across each touch point. To do this, user experience design approaches every problem through the lens of the user to understand the user’s motivation, the actions taken to use the product, and how to seamlessly build and deploy the product to meet (or exceed) expectations.
This UX design process begins and ends with the user. While the “user’s experience” has always been a priority for designers, companies now go through a lot of research and development in this area to further it even more. Any new application isn’t successful if it does not provide an excellent user experience to the end customer and the stakeholder.
What’s next for software development?
The software development industry is continuously evolving to keep up with the times. As the pandemic created lasting and rippling effects on the tech industry as a whole, many innovations and improvements are already in production. The broad spectrum of new technologies and innovations creates even more massive potential for further improvement in software development.
Software development firms can no longer ignore emerging trends. Companies choosing to invest time, finances, and other resources to adjust to the changing market’s expectations will therefore achieve and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.
