The Wave of the Future: Are You Prepared

Innovation and new markets are growing at lightning speed. We live in a world where cars listen, TV screens bend and machines can write with no humans necessary. We are rapidly growing to reflect the futuristic cartoon, The Jetsons.

Here’s a look at the current tech trends that are defining the future of small business:

Is your company equipped for the future now?

The idea of having a “personal cloud” for storage is so 2011. Now you can combine office, mobile, Web-based and even home-based storage options to achieve near automatic data on everything from your smartphone to your TV-set top box. The line has become blurred in terms of personal and business use of such technologies.

PAPERLESS
Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark and Canon have touted their Web-enabled printers for years, but the equipment wasn’t all that useful and frankly became unnecessary. Thanks to the current crop of mobile devices, you can send documents to printers directly from your smartphone or tablet. Instead of lugging along a ton of material on your business trip, you can store documents on your device and print them as needed.

TOUCH ME
Manage your workload with a touch of the finger. Innovative technology has helped bring the price of doing business way down! Solutions like touch-controlled office kiosks, interactive point of sale terminals and employee inventory systems are now at your disposable. The ViewSonic VX2258 touch-controlled monitor can be installed in a store or medical room as a low cost kiosk.

NO DESKTOP
There is no need to spend big money for the desktop pc. Sectors like health care, financial services, hospitality and retail, along with government and education are all tuning into the idea of IT networking. PCs are quite frankly becoming weaker and weaker by the movement, if they are not connected to a processing network that is full power.

SPEED IS KING
Fast and precise service providers are investing heavily in (LTE) Long Term networks. AT&T, Google and Clearwire are entering a space that Verizon Wireless once dominated. This move will ultimately provide consumers with more options and revolutionize the mobile experience for small business owners. This is happening fast, so expect LTE packages sooner than later.

AUTO OFFICE
GM, Ford and Toyota have made it possible for business owners to stop thinking company car and begin thinking about the vehicle as a moving cubicle! Low cost tracking tools and productivity features like Ford’s Crew Chief vehicle management app.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
Voice control technology is an always ready assistant that can help you while driving. Voice recognition tools such as Nuance Communications offers the Dragon Go voice recognition app.

CAN YOU WRITE THIS DOWN?
Bye-bye secretary! Now there are machines that can write! Automated Insights has put its writing program to work creating more than 400 Web sites, 700 Twitter feeds and 400 mobile apps. This thirteen person firm creates every single grammatically correct word in this network by machine!

A Timeline in Innovation: Technology through the Years

2600 BC
The abacus is invented in China

1440
Gutenberg develops the press

1827
Joseph Nicéphore Niepce takes the first photograph

1838
Samuel Morse invents the Morse Code

1873
Christopher Scholes invents the QWERTY typewriter

1876
Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone

1906
The first radio broadcast airs

1925
The first television broadcast airs

1981
IBM introduces the personal computer

1982
The Internet is born

1983
Cellular phones are sold commercially for the first time

1998
Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch Google

2001
Apple issues the iPod

2004
Facebook goes live

2006
Twitter launches

2007
Apple launches the iPhone Google unveils the Android operating system

2008
Apple opens its app store Google launches Android Market

2010
Apple introduces the iPad