Top 12 Knowledge Requirements for 2012

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2011 gave a very powerful positive impact on specialized business life for Social Media and Smart Phone Professionals - many new Gadgets, Applications, Job Profiles, Start-ups and Success Stories.

2012 – Definitely, is coming with lot more new opportunities for IT communities.

Well, what is essential for your success in 2012 – Let’s take a quick look on top knowledge requirements.

• Mobile Application Programming – It is not just Android, Windows Phone and IOS Programming. Look into HTML5, CSS3, Advance Java-script, JSON, JQuery and PHP. Mobile WEB Frameworks are going to be an excellent option for “Develop Once-Deploy to All” Concept.


• Customized Agile Project Management – Agile is still not professionally implemented in many organizations. Most of the Small and Medium size companies are using it as simplified version of traditional project management – but in the name of Agile. Certified Scrum Master and Agile Scrum Trainings for your Project Team are essential for a success with quality.


• Location Based Services – There are very few applications with Location based Content Identification as a feature and most of them are just social and Infotainment. There are lot more requirements which can be fulfilled with LBS – for Example: Tourism, Education etc.


• Data Center / Networking Technologies- The demand for networking professionals is high with virtualization and cloud computing projects. Virtualization and the Cloud could also be behind the increased need for IT professionals with backgrounds in data center operations and systems integration.


• Smartphone Security – Smartphones are becoming part of corporate network elements now days and security for official and personal data becomes major question. Data Security Applications, Anti-virus Tools, Remote Content Management, Policies for using Smartphones are high in requirement.


• User Interface Design – UI Design and Development is an important presentation layer element, which decides the success of many Smartphone and Tablets apps, and also PC and WEB Apps. There are certification course available to educate you about best practices and standards and it is a hot item in job market too.


• Mobile Commerce / Payment – Smartphones and Feature phones are fully capable for Money Management now days with Applications from various vendors. There were few banking apps, mobile malls and payment apps showed success stories last year, and I am expecting more to come in 2012.


•  Context Aware Applications – A new technology provides improved user experiences by using the information about a person's interests, intentions, history, environment, activities, schedule, priorities, connections and preferences to anticipate their needs and proactively serve up the most appropriate content, product or service.


• Gaming Smartphones, Devices – estimated to $800 million business, it provides numerous opportunities for business owners and technical professionals.


• Help Desk/Technical Support–Mobile operating systems have added a new dimension to help desk and tech support community and this will improve a lot in future.


• Business Intelligence – from Cost saving to investing in Technology, I am expecting many new prospects with BI.  There are certifications, Business Analysis best practices to improve it.


• Life with Open Source – Open source is not just limited to PHP and MYSQL, but there are more useful, free to use, efficient platforms for developers, designers, project managers, analysts, testers, business owners and general IT end-users.

I wish you all the best in this New Year 2012 for many new success stories, career improvements and business values.

Promising technologies for future

Last weekend, I visited to one education institution regarding an enquiry about Business Intelligence and Project management for BI projects. While discussing with the Center Head, the topics turned into must required technical skills for next 5 years. We discussed about around 15 technical skills – based on the articles I read with Tech republic, but let me consolidate them and list as 5 major skills – which may create more business and career opportunities at all levels.

Security
Virtualization
Unified Communications
Wireless Technology
Software as a Service

Security – Technologies such as VoIP and Mobile Computing bring new security issues and challenges. Authentication methods are evolving from a password-based model to multifactor models and biometrics are likely to become more important in the future.

Microsoft is heavily investing in the technology with its Windows hypervisor (Viridian), which will run on Windows Server 2008, VMWare offering VMWare Server for free, and Red Hat and SuSE planning
to include Xen hypervisor technology in the next versions of their server products, we can expect the concept of virtual machines to go to a whole new level soon.

The concept of unified communications — the convergence of different communications technologies, such as e-mail, voicemail, text messaging, and fax — looks to be the wave of the future. Users will expect to have access to all their communications from a single interface, such as their Inbox, and from a variety of devices: PCs, laptops, smart phones/PDAs, traditional phones, etc. Convergence makes networks more complex, and IT administrators will need to develop skills for managing converged
networks to compete in tomorrow’s job market.

The Wireless networking concepts and its new standards (ex: 802.11n) are promising faster and more secured wireless technologies. Cell phones, Blackberries, and other ultra-portable devices are becoming
ubiquitous and will likely grow more sophisticated in the future. Employees will expect to get their corporate e-mail on their phones and in some cases (such as Windows Mobile devices), to use terminal services client software to connect these small devices to the company LAN.

SaaS [Software as a Service], involves delivering applications over the Web, rather than installing those applications on individual users’ machines. With SaaS, the IT administrators’ responsibilities will improve
to less focus on deployment and maintenance of applications and more emphasis on broader-based planning, convergence, etc.

Please share your views and comments on the above topics, and suggest me, which other technical areas will get more requirements, and skill improvements – per your experiences.