Humans have a one-in-a-trillion chance of having a doppelgänger in the world—that is, someone who looks exactly like them down to their eyes, lips, and bone structure. But in an avatar-driven digital environment like the metaverse, another individual running around with your (digital) face is much more probable.
As reported by Everest Group in their “Taming the Hydra: Trust and Safety in the Metaverse” report, 55% of respondents in the US were concerned about the tracking and misuse of their personal data in the metaverse.
Three of the companies — Infosys, HCLTech, and L&T Technology Services — ended the December quarter with a higher net headcount, but the employee additions were at a slower rate than the previous quarters. Market leaders Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and LTIMindtree all posted a fall in headcount.
“Though the demand-supply gap for talent is reducing, we expect the gap to continue in the range of 8-20% based on specific segments within tech services,” said Yugal Joshi, Partner at Everest Group.
Everest Group recently helped a low code no code (LCNC) product company evolve its product and pricing strategy by assessing the market standing of its platform features and commercials. Read on to learn about the approach, assessment dimensions, and outcomes in this case study.
As part of the engagement, we provided the following services to the client:
Identified key strengths and development opportunities for the platform and provided short-term and long-term roadmap recommendations for prioritizing features
Assessed the leading LCNC commercial models in the industry, along with enterprise adoption patterns and preferences
Performed a price benchmarking exercise
Projected the pricing evolution over the next 24 months based on demand patterns and macroeconomic trends
Everest Group approach
Everest Group analyzed the platform from two broad perspectives: application development capabilities (declarative tooling to accelerate application development and delivery) and process orchestration capabilities (ability to design, execute, and monitor business processes). In this blog, we’ll focus on the application development capabilities.
Everest Group gathered insights about the platform capabilities from the provider using a comprehensive RFI that collected more than 190 data points across 17 categories, followed by a briefing and demo showcasing the platform’s capabilities. Inputs from these sources were used in conjunction with our existing low-code research and ongoing conversations with ecosystem players to inform the final review across the below assessment dimensions.
Assessment dimensions
Based on our research of low-code platforms published earlier this year, we identified the following five key areas where LCNC platforms can drive competitive differentiation through strategic investments:
Source: Everest Group
Now let’s take a closer look at each of the assessment dimensions and the features/components evaluated in each of these areas.
Pre-built templates
One of the foundational elements of an enterprise-ready low-code platform, this dimension takes into account the availability of out-of-the-box templates for common user interface components, widgets, and functional libraries, as well as reusability of user-built templates, availability of industry-specific out-of-the-box solutions, and a robust marketplace supported by multiple partners.
Interoperability
Before incorporating any new technology tool into its ecosystem, enterprise IT teams prioritize its ease of integration with the existing tech stack during the evaluation process. This dimension assesses the availability of pre-built connectors to common tools in the enterprise technology stack, the low code option to include further integrations, and the ability for developers to use custom scripting to call external application programming interfaces (APIs) where required.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities for application development
As low-code platforms scale in importance from building departmental workflow applications to business-critical enterprise-grade applications, the extent of AI-powered abilities offered is proving to be a key win theme. Through in-house capabilities or integration with external AI providers, low-code platforms aspire to provide AI-powered development assistance, AI-based application management services, AI-based automated testing, AI-powered code quality alerts, and AI-augmented portfolio analysis.
Collaborative development
Business users play an increasingly important role in the application lifecycle, collaborating with professional developers to reduce the gap between their requirements and the final product’s functionalities. Therefore, a platform should offer capabilities that facilitate effective collaboration, such as role-based access, project management capabilities, document sharing capabilities, and notifications on app updates, among others.
User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) capabilities
This dimension considers the support provided to UI components like lists and tables, the ability to support different devices and operating systems, language options, integrations with design tools, reusable screen templates, customizable themes, and navigation ease. UI/UX capabilities are a key swaying factor in enterprise low code buying decisions, especially when building customer-facing applications.
Pricing insights
The subscription-based pricing model experienced higher adoption than perpetual licensing in 2021 because it results in lower upfront investments and greater flexibility to scale deployments. Of the eight different pricing models uncovered in our research, the user-based licensing model was the most widely adopted. On-premise deployment of low-code and no-code platforms was found to be 25-50% more costly than cloud-based deployment.
Sample outputs
Source: Everest Group
Outcomes
Gap identification – Everest Group helped the client identify key market differentiators, strengths, and limitations across dimensions, as well as the key features for each of these elements
Fine-tuning product vision and roadmap – The insights helped the client prioritize its feature pipeline and advance its messaging to have a greater impact
Product and pricing strategy – The trend analysis helped the client understand the pricing strategies adopted by their competitors and how these vary based on factors like hosting environment and buyer geography
For more information about this LCNC project or to discuss our research on low-code and no-code platforms, please reach out to Manukrishnan SR, Alisha Mittal, or Yugal Joshi.
The technology and services market this year experienced strong growth. But we have a slight deceleration at the end of this year as the prospect of a potentially deep recession grows. There is now a slowdown in consulting, particularly strategic consulting, and a slowdown in discretionary spending. Will that continue? Here is an overview of what I predict for the coming year.
Web 3.0 offers great promise for enterprises and service providers. Moving to a decentralized internet can provide users with many benefits. The foundational infrastructure needed to create this truly open technology is evolving. Read on to learn about the features and requirements for the web’s next evolution.
Web 3.0 (or Web3) – a new intelligent and decentralized internet that will be more responsive, interactive, and tailor-made to enhance customer experience – is poised to take off. By allowing for advanced user and device interaction, the next version of the internet will recognize and interpret content and contexts.
Web 3.0 will enable newer business models based on data ownership where owned digital assets will be the key to unlocking access to the richer areas of the internet, moving away from the concepts of “trust” and “permission” presiding in the current internet version.
Seamless lending and borrowing that does not rely on creditworthiness, transaction-based user identification (goodbye Know Your Customer), intelligent marketing, and much more are on the verge of becoming a reality – all enabled by Web3.
Despite its many promising benefits, the transition to Web3 has been slower than initial estimates. But with the underlying technologies’ rising maturity, applications by startups and other enterprises are surging. Established firms also are rapidly exploring Web3 and innovating their existing business models.
Building blocks of Web3
As the industry experiments with Web3 to unlock benefits, the supporting infrastructure that enables the next internet version also is evolving. While creating and interacting with content on websites will continue to be done on existing web servers, the underlying network will facilitate owning and controlling created data.
Let’s take a deep dive into the building blocks of Web 3.0 infrastructure to better understand the following ideal core features required to create this truly open technology:
Smart contracts: These pieces of code stored on the underlying blockchain technology get executed when conditions are met. Smart contracts play a critical role in authenticating certain outcomes without needing an intermediary. The automation can continue the governance-free workflow and, once authenticated, update the blockchain. These contracts are enforceable by code, maintaining transparency and autonomy.
Tokens (fungible and nonfungible): Monetary incentives like these are vital for Web3’s growth. Tokens can be offered to anyone who contributes to the platform’s governance and improvement. Digital assets lie at the core of the decentralized internet vision and serve as authenticity and ownership proof.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): Contextualizing interactions will be critical for hyper-personalization in Web3. AI can bring about increased accuracy, enhanced security, and greater scalability. To achieve these outcomes, Machine Learning (ML) will be used to filter and analyze content to gain meaningful insights, prioritize content, and create user-friendly interfaces in web apps. AI is already changing internet usage in the current Web 2.0 version and will become more dominant in Web3.
Underlying infrastructure requirements
The foundational elements unlock an ecosystem of decentralized, open infrastructure for everyone to use and build Web3. While AI remains an essential building block, smart contracts and tokens are implemented using blockchain. The underlying infrastructure that can seamlessly run blockchain applications and AI/ML models has the following requirements:
Computing: Although the Web3 model can converge excess computational resources, running blockchain nodes will require access to high-performance computing infrastructure. Running AI/ML models to serve customized results requires quantum computing to be prevalent. Moreover, running 3D graphics over Web3 in real-time in use cases such as Metaverse would require high-power Graphics Processing Units (GPUs)
Storage: AI in Web3 will feed on vast amounts of data to enable personalization. Storing such huge amounts of data requires larger disk sizes. Extremely fast disk read speeds are essential to leverage stored data. The underlying Web 3.0 infrastructure would need to support data of applications that leverage Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) and other media/video use cases. Finally, Web3 will require decentralized storage solutions to preserve the technology’s sanctity
Network: High speed and low latency are foundational requirements to enable Web3. Higher network speed will determine the data transfer and blockchain update speed, enabling real-time processing. Maintaining low latency and high throughput also becomes critical for the transactions and interconnections to prevent delays and enhance the user experience. However, the decentralized nature is concerning because it inherently increases latency and the latency data of leading blockchain networks need improvement
To summarize, all the infrastructure elements must be upgraded to create an efficient Web3 network. Different types of nodes (servers that run blockchain applications) will have varying requirements for computing, storage, and speed.
Edge centers thereby become a natural choice for this ecosystem as they will bring computing and storage closer to devices with varying configurations. These centers will enable cost-effective analysis and processing of Web3 application data.
As far as reliability, the default peer-to-peer nature of blockchain networks enables Web3 to withstand physical hardware failure and network outages. Thus, the extra cost of redundancy would not give enterprises any sizeable operational benefits.
Evolving landscape
Both cloud providers and dedicated server providers have recognized this space’s potential and have made inroads with various startups such as Ankr and ChainSafe. The higher computation power of bare metal servers makes them a natural choice for multiple Web3 projects and protocols. Without redundancy and resiliency concerns, enterprises can easily grow their applications. Firms that are developing performance-sensitive applications will prefer dedicated hardware resources.
Cloud computing’s established reputation and market stronghold will create tough competition for physical server providers and may be able to attract more enterprises. Cloud computing models can strengthen blockchain and increase Web3 security.
Even leading cloud vendors such as AWS and Google Cloud are launching node services. Their Web3 units will provide support for blockchain developers with tools and platforms that can enhance their blockchain journey. However, expanding presence in the Web3 space will require a lot of effort from these hyperscalers to dismiss centralization concerns of using public cloud computing services.
Since all service providers are promoting firms to enhance their applications on their blockchain infrastructure offerings, those who can help enterprises build the next set of innovative applications will stand out as leaders.
With investments pouring in from venture capitals, hedge funds, private equity firms, and other investors, Web3 holds great opportunity that strategy, technology, and consulting providers can cash in by building 3.0 businesses for clients.
To discuss the evolving cloud and Web 3.0 infrastructure, contact Mukesh Ranjan and Kaustubh K.
By democratizing data and giving power back to internet users, Web 3.0 offers many new computing possibilities and growth opportunities for enterprises and IT service providers. Learn more about the evolution of the web and how the decentralization of the internet is poised to shake up business and operating models.
The evolution of the Web – from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0
The first internet version (Web 1.0) was limited in scope and interactivity. Users could only read what was displayed or shown to them, and communication was one-way with website hosts primarily focused on delivering content and information.
With Web 2.0, the internet became all about interactivity and collaboration. Web 2.0’s emphasis on social connectivity and user-generated content completely replaced Web 1.0’s bland read-only web pages. Users now could produce and share information online and were no longer limited to being passive content consumers. Instead of read-only, the web evolved to be read-write, with companies creating platforms to share user-generated content and engage in user-to-user interactions.
Web 2.0, however, led to the web’s primarily advertising-driven business/monetization model. Google, YouTube, and Facebook realized along the way that storing and transmitting the state of billions of users and targeting them for advertising is hugely profitable. The benefits of the internet slowly started skewing heavily towards a handful of these platforms.
With Web 2.0’s innovation curve now in its middle to late phase and its leaders well-established, it is time to explore the new computing possibilities of the next wave. Web 3.0 is evolving as a reaction to the overwhelmingly centralized nature of the internet today and the concentration of power in the hands of a few platforms. Web 3.0, by construct, aims to remove these third-party intermediaries and restore power to users so that they can benefit from internet activities.
Let’s look at the changes in interaction, computation, and information as illustrated below:
Evolution of the web
What is Web 3.0?
Web 3.0 is vastly different from previous generations. At its core, Web 3.0 is not about speed, performance, or convenience. Instead, Web 3.0 is about power; in fact, many Web 3.0 applications are, at least today, slower, and less convenient than existing products.
The primary focus of Web 3.0 is about who controls the technologies and applications that make up the internet and distributing its benefits without handing most of the power to a handful of large companies as we do today. Web 3.0, by construct, aims to remove third-party intermediaries and restore power to users so they can have a more immersive internet experience.
Decentralization of the internet under Web 3.0 will lead to a fairer and more open internet as it will allow anyone with an internet connection to participate and contribute to the ecosystem and enjoy greater benefits from web activities. Web 3.0 will also improve trust and reduce conflicts as users will possess the private key that can access their data, thereby eliminating the need for conflict resolution in the digital world.
We see Web 3.0 becoming a meaningful extension of Web 2.0, with the change being an evolution rather than a revolution with pockets of decentralized applications coexisting with the centralized web of today. The rollout will be gradual with a Web 2.5 stage.
Where is the internet headed?
The core concept of the Web 3.0 movement is decentralized ownership, with blockchain technology providing the underlying architecture for the internet’s next generation. Here are three key trends we see that will shape the future:
Decentralized platforms will allow for sustainable ecosystems of third-party applications
The products and services that make up the internet today tend to be produced and controlled by individual corporations. Web 3.0 provides the opportunity to democratize the online experience and ensure that no central entity will take a substantial chunk of the revenue; instead, creators will be able to directly interact with their users, strengthening relationships for both creators and users.
Money will become a native feature of the internet
While the past internet was simply a portal to the traditional financial system offline, now any user with an internet connection and phone can send or receive payments with the current software capabilities. Digital payments will unlock new business models that were previously impractical, radically lower the costs of cross-border remittances and other transactions, enable new use cases like machine payments, and expand availability to massive new markets.
Users will have more control over their digital identities and data
Web 3.0 is laying the groundwork for personal control of online identities. Today, most online identities belong to big, centralized companies. Web 3.0 will give users control over their data by allowing them to use their identity rather than one provided by a third party, limiting the potential for identity providers such as Facebook, Instagram, and Gmail to collect user data and sell that data to generate money.
Web 3.0 challenges
Business leaders need to realize that Web 3.0 is coming and pay attention to its latest development. But creating an ecosystem that can end the big tech companies’ monopolies and reimagine how we interact with the internet is a complex undertaking. Web 3.0 still faces significant hurdles in usability, performance, and business and monetization models, as illustrated below:
A new internet era begins
Web 3.0 represents the natural progression of the internet that offers many exciting opportunities for technology and IT service providers. To seize its growth potential, providers need to focus on creating thought capital, hiring techno-creative thinkers, and building a go-to-market strategy to target a broader range of Web 3.0 themes to prepare for the coming transition.
Big cities in India account for the lion’s share of the IT export services business, but tier-2 and tier-3 cities are also slowly morphing into hubs for the global services delivery.
US IT research advisory Everest Group’s Locations Insider report has estimated that out of the US$180 billion IT services export revenue, about US$36 billion was supported by tier-2 and tier-3 cities, driven by the need for risk diversification, cost savings, access to the untapped talent pool, and lower market congestion.
A new report released this week from Perception Point and Osterman Research found that, on average, companies pay $1,197 per employee each year to address cybersecurity incidents — which can add up quickly the larger an organization is.
Sandeep Pattathil, a Senior Analyst at the IT advisory firm, Everest Group, told VentureBeat that a major challenge still ahead will be quantum computing’s algorithmic advances — not speed.
