Saying that technology will continue to evolve how we work, when we work and where we work is no revelatory assertion in 2016. We can see all around us the myriad ways it affects our processes and our day. Predicting the drivers of this change and the form it will take though requires a little more knowledge, so we asked some of our senior team to share their thoughts on the matter and what they’re most looking forward to from tech in 2016. Our CTO brings it all together in the end with some thoughts on the “bliss” of cloud computing.

Christian Lund, CEO

What will be the key tech solutions adopted by businesses and individuals to help people work better in 2016?

My vote goes to online conversation. Online meeting tools have been around for a long time but we’ve been waiting for the tools to evolve, the Internet to speed up, and the enterprises to buy in. Finally, online conversation services have the necessary reliability, security and integrability. With products like Skype for Business the industry has reached an enterprise-grade that allows big business to choose online meetings over face-to-face, and to revolutionize meeting productivity.

Looking forward to 2026, what will be the major technological advances that revolutionize how the enterprise operates?

VR will have hit enterprises and disrupted the way we interact with customers, partners, colleagues, devices, the cloud, everything. I can’t wait to be a part of this.

What product release are you most looking forward to this year?

Microsoft and Facebook will kick off the virtual reality revolution and a new titan battle is born featuring HoloLens and Oculus. What’s not to like?

Complete this sentence: 2016 will be the year that…

…user adoption and consumption finally claim the throne in enterprise software. Dead roll-outs belong in the past.

Jesper Petersen, Senior Solution Specialist

What will be the key tech solutions adopted by businesses and individuals to help people work better in 2016?

I really think business analytics will take off on a very large scale. Especially Microsoft’s Power BI (included in Office 365) will make it so easy to provide new business insights – especially when combined with Machine Learning. The latter will also influence us on a personal level since a lot of internet services will get even better at predicting our next need (for gadgets in my case ;-)).

How will businesses continue to evolve their processes and engagement with staff and customers in a cloud-first 2016?

User adoption will be key. I believe that businesses for many years have focused way too much on the technical side of IT projects, just assuming that users would adopt a new IT system/process by themselves. Thankfully a lot of companies have started to hire customer success managers to support customers on this journey, and the service is provided free of charge when buying a new piece of software/service.

Looking forward to 2026, what will be the major technological advances that revolutionize how the enterprise operates?

Quantum computing – the closest thing to rocket science you’ll get… And at that time, it’ll of course be built into any wearable you can think of…

What product release are you most looking forward to this year?

Microsoft Hololens. I think that device could revolutionize how some industries work. E.g. architects bringing their 3D drawings to life.

Complete this sentence: 2016 will be the year that…

...I invest in more gadgets in the hope that they’ll make me more productive in a fun way. And the first year ever, where I’ll bike more to work than I’ll drive in my car.

Jesper Termansen, CMO

What will be the key tech solutions adopted by businesses and individuals to help people work better in 2016?

Mobile and cloud are two prominent technologies that will continue to constantly evolve and mature in 2016. From businesses to individual consumers, everyone is connected to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Communication is going device independent and end-users expect to be able to interact with their community from any given device.

How will businesses continue to evolve their processes and engagement with staff and customers in a cloud-first 2016?

The continued evolvement and the parallel increase in a number of endpoints that people use to access applications and information, or to interact with other people, social communities, governments and business, will result in a so-called “device mesh” which will create the foundation for a new user experience. Seamless digital experience for the user that blends device, time, and space, and combines the user’s physical environment with virtual and electronic environments. Designing this advanced and blended experience will be a major differentiator for software vendors and enterprises in general.

Looking forward to 2026, what will be the major technological advances that revolutionize how the enterprise operates?

I believe that during the next 10 years we will see a major shift in the workplace. Internet, cloud and mobile technologies are increasingly shifting work lives away from the corporate offices and toward an in-my-own-place and on-my-own-time work regimen. Smartphones, tablets and other mobile computing devices will become the go-to-computing devices for most of the world.Third places for work, like public libraries, co-working facilities and rent-by-the-hour office suites, will join and replace the traditional office.

What product release are you most looking forward to this year?

There isn’t one particular product release I’m looking forward to, but I’m excited about all the companies that will launch and come up with disruptive business models such as ÛBER, Airbnb, Skype, etc. I’m sure that 2016 will continue to evolve down the path of the Internet of Things – which basically means that everyday items can collect, send, and receive information. This means that you’ll now see start-ups using basic technology in surprising new ways.

Complete this sentence: 2016 will be the year that…

…more and more enterprises adopt the concept of NikeID.

Morten Ovi, Product & Team Lead

What will be the key tech solutions adopted by businesses and individuals to help people work better in 2016?

End-users in corporate business will find it better in some regards to use online editing tools like Microsoft Word Online than using the version installed locally. Sharing and collaboration will bring adoption, and so may the scaled-down offering that contains only the most essential tools.

Looking forward to 2026, what will be the major technological advances that revolutionize how the enterprise operates?

Mobile devices – mobiles and tablets and the like – will continue to move up the value chain. These devices – and new devices in the same space that we haven’t yet seen – will be used for multiple purposes. Continued convergence will make a device like a mobile phone capable of serving as mobile, tablet and laptop (when docked), lessening the need for the many devices corporate users are using today. This is particularly true for cloud solutions that require less local computational power than what we’re used to.

What product release are you most looking forward to this year?

Windows 10 for my Lumia 930. The UX for Windows Phone 8 wasn’t on par with the competition, but some integration with Windows 10 may prove valuable.

Complete this sentence: 2016 will be the year that…

…integrations become the norm. Either you integrate with other services or people will start looking elsewhere.

Henrik Printzlau, CTO

Looking at the roadmaps for the Microsoft Cloud offerings assure you how much focus Microsoft has got on killing your own datacenter – or at least taking a hybrid approach.

Here at Templafy, we have shut down the domain controller, now joining our Windows 10 machines to Azure AD and using the features of Office 365 Groups and SharePoint Online for content that would previously be stored on file shares. Having our entire infrastructure in the cloud is bliss.

I also believe that 2016 is the year where OS and device capabilities will be able to actually empower Microsoft's new mission statement of 2013: no more computer on every desk. With the right analysis and implementation, enterprises will have the option of not just handing out a laptop to each employee, but to start thinking of tablets or phones as the core of work production. With Windows 10 Continuum, the increased processing power of phones and clever use of Office 365, certain groups of employees will definitely feel the joy of having one device to rule them all.

We’ve also seen some of our enterprise clients successfully walk the line of cloud-only strategy using Google technologies.

Where is Templafy in all of this? Templafy was created with the purpose of supporting all of the above. Enabling your employees to work with Office 365 on any device requires that you bring them a Template Management System that supports that. That’s what Templafy does.