Top Trends in Software Development 2022: CHI Predictions
It seems there’s no limit to software development growth and progress — and it’s not surprising. Markets and industries change every year, and so do customer needs. The world is never the same.
Our today’s article aims to cover the hottest software industry trends that are worth your attention. We’re giving a rough idea of how software development will look in 2022. No crystal balls — only professional insights.
1. Fintech: OpenFin
Fintech is moving at the highest pace, numbering 26,346 companies globally in November 2021. In comparison, there were only 20,925 fintechs in 2020 (Statista). While the market is growing, existing and emerging businesses require a common infrastructure — OpenFin is a decent response to this.
OpenFin is a company founded in 2010 that provides a desktop operating system for financial organizations of different types and sizes. As of 2021, the platform is used by 2400 companies with 300,000+ users in total.
OpenFin is a system added to your existing tech infrastructure providing it with advanced features. Importantly, OpenFin does not host your app on its servers — on the contrary, software development teams have full control over the development process.
2. Cloud Computing: AWS, Azure, and GCP
Migrating to the cloud is not among new software trends — it’s been on the market for some time now. Regardless of the company’s size and purposes, more and more businesses opt for cloud computing, and this tendency won’t go anywhere soon.
According to Statista, the global public cloud computing market is growing and expected to reach 482 billion USD next year.
As of 2021, AWS controls 32% of the public cloud market, Microsoft goes next with 21%, and GCP has 8% of the market (Statista).
3. Distributed Computing
Distributed computing is a technique of connecting several computer servers into one group to easily share data and manage processing power.
It’s no secret that data volumes are growing globally, creating challenges for application workload. Distributed computing helps to smooth it out through scaling. If you need more information to store, you only have to add another server to the group.
The next chapter of this story is distributed cloud computing. Cloud service platforms themselves don’t provide distributed computing by default, but you can find a lot of distributed computing software on the market that runs on the cloud. Furthermore, Gartner states that by 2024 most cloud service providers will enable distributed cloud computing.
4. Low-Code and No-Code Development
Building from scratch or buying a ready-made solution? In some cases, you won’t have to make this choice thanks to LC/NC (Low Code/No Code), one of the top trends in software development.
Low code and no code allow you to create digital products with no advanced coding skills. Both tech- and non-tech specialists can benefit from it.
As the name suggests, no code is the simpler of the two. Imagine a drag-and-drop tool to create basic apps — this is a no-code platform in a nutshell. Solutions built with its help are not scalable or easily integrated with other tools, but they can be a go-to option in case of urgency or scope limitations.
Low code is more complex being in-between no-code and traditional development approaches. It has the same constructor principle as no code, but a future app can be customized through coding. It significantly increases the development speed as there is no need to write the basic code.
By 2030, the global low-code market is expected to get a 187 billion USD revenue (compared to 10.3 billion USD in 2019), moving at the pace of 31.1% CAGR. On top of that, 75% of IT leaders and 67% of developers state they can’t afford to miss the low-code trend.
5. Salesforce
For those who need some intro information, Salesforce is a company that offers a cloud-based CRM as the main product and offers tools for customer service, analytics, marketing activities, and application development.
As usual, figures will demonstrate it better:
- Salesforce revenue has reached 21.25 billion USD in 2021, which is a record number for the company;
- Another record is the Salesforce net income — over 4 billion USD this year. The previous net income peak was 1.11 billion USD in 2019 — four times lower than this year.
6. Blockchain
People usually connect blockchain with cryptocurrencies (specifically Bitcoin). However, the niche has gone further. Smart contracts, security for logistics and supply chains, identity protection — all these features make blockchain one of the hottest software development technology trends.
Statista predicts that by the end of 2021, the blockchain market will reach 6.6 billion USD, and in the next three years, it will make a leap to 19 billion USD.
The popular blockchain use cases in 2021 include IoT devices, artificial intelligence, fraud prevention, smart contracts, social media.
7. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens)
NFTs are digital objects that represent different collectible items sold online using cryptocurrencies and within blockchain’s smart contracts. Note that every NFT is a unique item (“non-fungible”), so a buyer acquires a special certificate proving the fact of ownership.
This phenomenon has been on the market since 2017 (the collection of “CryptoKitties”), but its finest hour has come in 2021. Originally, the tokens were Ethereum’s idea and existed only on that blockchain, but with time, other market players joined the race with their NFT versions.
While it seems irrational for many, the NFT market is now gaining momentum. In March 2021, the artist Beeple sold the token of his work for 69.3 million USD. As of today, around 40 000 tokens are sold daily with a trading volume of nearly 100 million USD.
There’s more to tell about these trends, so we’ve prepared a detailed guide in our blog. Click here for more interesting facts, statistics, use cases, and business benefits.
