2014: cloud storage will shine

2013 may just be a transit point in the development of the cloud storage market. Many of the cloud storage and file-sharing products have been recognized in mainstream businesses and are already being used widely. Many manufacturers such as Box, Dropbox and Citrixsharefile have increased their strength by raising money, adding new security features, acquisitions and partnerships. This begs the question: what can we expect from 2014?

Box and Dropbox IPOs will be a watershed for the industry as a whole, so where should investors invest their money? Given that Box's latest market capitalisation is only $2 billion trillion and its focus on the corporate user market, it still has a lot of room to rise, but CEO Drucheston ( Drewhouston) and his team are also indispensable. Dropbox's revenue is twice times that of box, focusing mainly on the corporate market.

In short, this is not a zero-sum game, and the entire cloud file-sharing market will benefit. This includes many existing vendors, such as EMC, Citrix, and Microsoft. An IPO could also provide the necessary legitimacy for a regulated industry like financial services, allowing them to consider cloud storage solutions with caution.

Customers will play an important role

Customers will be under strict control because of the many options available to them. If you're going to buy a cloud file sharing solution in 2014, you'll have a chance. It customers should evaluate multiple solutions to achieve the highest possible value. Don't be content with a product just because it's advertised in a press release, and don't forget that there are a lot of "big shots". As manufacturers want to increase market share, customers are holding huge bargaining chips and can lock in important long-term discounts. Finally, if you have a large enough environment, customers should consider deploying multiple solutions to avoid being too dependent on one vendor and being involved in a price war later.

Manufacturers will decide on ease of use and speed of information flow

In the 2013, manufacturers merged their core infrastructure capabilities to meet the needs of technical customers. These features are now the chips on the table. So how will each manufacturer make its own features in the product?

Simplicity and ease of use: the views of IT administrators and actual enterprise end users will be key.

Information flow speed: As the amount of unstructured data stored in these devices increases dramatically, they will become the de facto corporate brain.

As a result, the ability to help users pinpoint the content they need from their cloud storage systems in a very short period of time will be the most important thing.

New key applications will expand the scope of cloud storage applications to address the various business problems of end users

Both box and Dropbox have lofty ambitions and are not just content to be a product supplier. They all want to be a platform for developing partners to provide a thriving ecosystem. The market is looking forward to the emergence of new applications that will leverage the cloud storage infrastructure to address the key issues that enterprise users face in their functional and specific businesses. Examples of these applications are a variety of powerful workflows that can handle payments, automated content planning, or advanced content analysis. Some of these features can be done by third-party developers and others require in-house development within the IT department.

In fact, many leading CIOs are already considering how to extend the coverage of cloud storage networks, providing more value to end users and maximizing their investment value. Over time, the value of cloud storage will slowly shift to these new intelligent layers and user-centric workflows. Whether you're a manufacturer, a customer, or an investor in the cloud-storage market, 2014 will be the year for the industry to shine.