The Evolution of Business Computing: Two Trends Every Company Should Embrace

In the beginning, there was LEO.

The year was 1951, and group of British computer engineers had created the first computer specifically for businesses. "LEO" stood for "Lyons Electronic Office" (Lyons was the name of the company the engineers worked for). It was a huge, slow device, of course, as all computers of that era were. It took up a large room, with a control panel the size of a conference room table. The last of the LEO computers didn't go out of commission until the early 1980s.

Pull out your phone and take a look at it. No, really -- pull it out and look at it. Take a moment to be philosophical and think about just how far computing technology has come from the first LEO. From email accounts to order tracking, Google Drive to social media marketing apps, your smartphone is a much better "electronic office" than LEO could have ever dreamed of being.

LEO is business computing's past; what is business computing's future? Take a look at these two business computing trends that every business should be investing in.

Wait -- You're Still Using Wires?

We live in a wireless world. Nevertheless, many -- if not most -- businesses still have a wired local network. Their justifications for living in the past seem reasonable: Wired networks are cheaper than wireless ones and they have fewer security holes. However, wireless LANs are definitely the future of IT. Why?

For starters, all those wires can be a pain and maintaining them sucks up a lot of the IT department's time. Every new employee or new office needs a new wired connection set up, with yet more cables. Also, any IT professional who's ever had to track down the problem with a malfunctioning ethernet connection knows what a hassle it can be.

Furthermore, employees are showing up to work with tablets, mobile phones, and personal laptop computers. They can be more productive if they can use these wireless devices to tap into the corporate network. Otherwise, they waste a lot of time going back and forth between devices or trying to figure out how to transfer information from their personal machines to the business' network.

Granted, security issues with wireless LANs are definitely important to address. Installing a wireless LAN for a business means taking new security measures. Educating employees, especially if they will be able to connect their personal devices to the network, is particularly important. Despite the fact that we're almost a decade and a half into the 21st century, there are still plenty of people who don't understand basic Internet security best practices. Policies might need to change; new software might need to be installed; regular malware checks, if they aren't being done already, will become an absolute necessity. Even though wireless brings a few new headaches in this regard, the drawbacks are outweighed by the long-term benefits of having a wireless network.

Get Your Head in the Clouds

Besides wireless, the other evolution in business computing that companies need to be taking advantage of right now is cloud computing. According to a recent article by Forbes, businesses in the United States will be spending $13 billion on cloud computing in 2014.

"Cloud computing" can mean a lot of different things. The applications of cloud computing most relevant to businesses are:

1) Online storage and back-up

2) Software as a Service (SaaS)

3) The convergence of big data and the cloud

1) Online storage and back-up

The simplest examples of cloud storage is Google Drive and Apple's iCloud, in which users can store data (documents, photos, videos, music, etc.) not on their device but "in the cloud." What does it mean to say that something is "in the cloud"? Essentially, the cloud is the Internet. Instead of storing data on the hard drive of a device, cloud users store their data in one or more of the many of the data centers that, when linked together, make up the Internet.

For individuals, cloud storage and cloud back-up mean that they don't have to clutter their hard drives and slow down their machines with copious amounts of data. They also don't have to worry about losing said data if their machine ever breaks, gets stolen, or is lost.

For businesses, cloud storage and back-up mean the same thing. Backing up important data to the cloud gives businesses the reassurance that they won't lose that data in the future. Furthermore, by storing data in the cloud, employees can access that data from anywhere that they have an Internet connection.

2) Software as a Service (SaaS)

Do you store programs important to your business' daily running on your LAN? That's so old-school. All those applications slow down your network and are expensive to maintain. These days, you should subscribe to your software in the cloud and let it live on someone else's network. More or less every piece of business software you need, from Microsoft Office to customer relationship management software, can live on the cloud. Once again, this gives your employees the added benefit of being able to access the software they need to do their job from anywhere they are at.

3) The convergence of big data and the cloud

"Big data" is another important buzz phrase related to business computing these days. It is basically what it sounds like it is -- a whole lot of data. The amount of data being produced by the average modern person is absolutely overwhelming. In a single day, for example, Facebook users alone post 350 million photos.

In order to analyze all the data that their customers are producing, businesses pretty much have to use cloud computing. There's so much of that data that there's no way they could store, parse, and analyze all the data on their own machines; they can only do it by taking advantage of cloud computing.

From LEO to the Cloud, Business Computing Has Come a Long Way

When the inventors of the LEO I powered up their first business computer, they probably never could have imagined how different the computing world would be in another 65 years. Most of us understand that keeping up with the ever-evolving tech industry is a challenge at best; at worst, it's impossible.

However, going wireless and embracing the cloud are two things that all businesses can do right now. It's no longer a question about whether or not these trends will stick around; they are definitely here to stay. The sooner businesses adapt to this latest evolution and implement these new technologies, the better off they will be in the long run.

What other important evolutions to business computing should companies be adopting sooner rather than later? Tell us in the comments section below.

Hassan Bawab, founder and CEO of Magic Logix, integrated marketing agency, is a leader in cutting edge technology and an innovative keynote speaker/writer and an author of "How to Work with a Digital Marketing Agency". @HassanBawab