Dec 23, 2011: In this, the first in a short series till the new year, we bring you predictions by technology industry leaders on the leading trends we can expect in 2012.

For an assessment of enterprise networking trends, we turned to the global leaders in Wide Area Network optimization – Riverbed Technology – creators of award winning solutions like the software portfolio, Stingray and the packet capture product Cascade Shark. We spoke to
Riverbed’s India Managing Director Anil Batra and Technology Director Joshua Tseng – And this is what they see as the top  tech trends for 2012:

1. The growth of rich Internet applications such as video, mobile applications and cloud-based applications leading to increase in data growth
2. Web page optimization will become increasingly desirable as underperforming data stored in the public cloud will grow faster than expected as cloud storage prices continue to decline. Hybrid cloud will emerge as a hot trend as an increase in flexible APIs and interoperability with existing IT assets will grow steadily
3. With the growth of networked devices including smart phones, tablets and the adoption of cloud based services, computing will become even more ubiquitous. By the end of 2012, the number of Web-enabled smart phones and tablets will surpass the number of PCs in use
4. The continued consumerization of IT and increased mobility will spur the adoption of SaaS-based applications
5. With maturing trends such as cloud computing, virtualization and virtual desktops, a growing number of organizations will own lesser  or even no IT assets.
6. Video usage in the enterprise is expected to gain momentum. 7.Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) will gain momentum and deplete the remaining blocks of IPv4.