Clamour for cloud, but lack of buy-in for mobile payments

Neil Logan, CTO of Amor Group, compares the reality with the hype levels for some of 2011's biggest trends

I once read that the only thing that you can say with certainty about the future is that it will arrive... eventually. So making predictions about technology trends is something fraught with danger for any sensible technologists but here's my take on one of the trends that I think is going to be big this year and a one that isn't.

Cloud computing is already having a big impact with chip manufacturer AMD estimating that 70 per cent of businesses are either using or investigating cloud computing solutions. Worldwide investment in cloud computing provisioning will see double-digit percentage growth to around $100bn (£64bn) this year. Cloud computing is here to stay and this year any business that isn't either using it or actively investigating its use will be in the extreme minority.

While consumerisation of IT is taking hold this year, mobile payments is one trend that appears to be struggling to get off the ground. Google burst on to the scene with their Google Wallet offering in 2011, but so far consumers have been slow to get behind it. Near-field communication, the enabling technology, has not made it onto the iPhone, and that probably has something to do with it being largely unknown by consumers.

Neil Logan (pictured) is chief technology officer at Amor Group