With regard to corporate IT, change is coming. The way companies buy, build, manage, and optimize their IT infrastructure to ensure information security is changing dramatically. From cloud computing to big data analytics to ubiquitous mobile connectivity, enterprise IT systems are becoming faster, more efficient, less expensive to operate, and easier to use. In the process, some new technology companies are emerging to challenge existing companies on the market.

　　Venture capital institutions invest more in the field of enterprise computing than ever before. In the first six months of 2014 alone, this sector attracted a record $5.4 billion investment. Companies in this industry, such as Workday, Palo Alto Networks, FireEye, ServiceNow, and Splunk, have completed billions of dollars in IPOs (IPOs), further igniting market enthusiasm. In the coming quarters, a number of companies in this field will be listed.

　　Transforming the Top Ten Trends in the Enterprise IT Market Cloud Computing Ranks First

　　Here are 10 important trends in changing the enterprise computing market:

　　1. Cloud computing: According to Morgan Stanley's data, nearly one-third of the work tasks are currently completed through cloud computing platforms. Cloud computing is so powerful because users can easily invest more resources into a particular application without having to purchase additional hardware. Need more capacity? Your cloud computing service provider can bring you these right away.

　　2. Virtualization of everything: Virtualization technology consolidates disparate servers into a unified pool of computing resources, and is easy to adjust. Server virtualization is so successful that enterprise IT departments can do everything from the data center to virtualization, including networking, information security, and storage services.

　　3. New IT buyers: Decision makers who buy IT services have moved from CIO offices and IT staff to regular employees in sales, marketing and finance. Technologies such as smartphones and cloud computing are rapidly evolving and enabling bottom-up adoption, opening up new opportunities for IT service providers. These service providers are currently facing more buyers, and these buyers are more willing to spend money and are more willing to try.

　　4. The rise of internal sales and online sales: With the rise of online sales channels, more and more companies are reducing their reliance on sales staff in the course of business development. This helps companies deliver products to users faster and can test market demand before building a sales team.

　　5. The sales model of “first landing and then expanding”: The company facing the enterprise market is imitating consumer software companies, providing customers with free trial services and adopting a free-value pricing model. Therefore, customers do not have to pay a higher fee to try. Lightweight use, pay for value, and focus on meeting customer needs. Such a model not only benefits the service provider but also the buyer. Open source technologies such as MySQL have paved the way for the development of this model, and the developments of Puppet Labs, DataStax/Cassandra and MuleSoft have shown that the open source model still works well. We are currently seeing that many other IT software products are adopting a freemium model.

　　6. Rethinking the workflow of the enterprise: The widespread adoption of mobile devices makes the workflow of the enterprise more efficient. Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff recently said he is doing his job entirely on his mobile phone. This makes everyday work easier. You can quickly open business documents with DocuSign via an electronic signature, or adjust the schedule and on-site personnel routes via ServiceMac. These mobile applications are transforming internal processes and automating many processes to ensure that work is done in a faster, smarter way.

　　7. The boundaries of information security continue to expand: As my partner T4ed Schlein said, information security threats are becoming more fragmented. Therefore, companies need to think about security at all levels of the network, including servers and terminals, and all the links between the two. Enterprises are also paying less and less attention to maintaining the boundaries of secure data. As more information security attacks occur outside such boundaries, next-generation information security companies such as Ionic Security, Illumio, and Bromium are trying to address these new security threats.

　　8. Data becomes a new competitive advantage: The advantage of big data is that it can bring new information to the enterprise. Optimized analytics can bring new, less-discoverable information to guide business operations. InsideSales.com found that if a salesperson calls back and provides information to a customer within 5 minutes of receiving a purchase request, the likelihood of completing the sale will increase by a factor of 10. By leveraging big data sets, companies can find such patterns for the first time.

　　9. Speed ​​will help you beat your competitors: faster application speed will determine who is the winner of the corporate market. Research from Wal-Mart and Compuware shows that every 1 second delay in application distribution leads to a 10% drop in revenue. Several emerging companies are focusing on speed: Instart Logic accelerates application distribution, AppDynamics monitors and helps solve application response times, and PernixData and Fusion-io use flash-based storage to increase data distribution speed several times .

　　10. Users value interface quality: Consumers spend a lot of time using mobile applications with beautiful, intuitive design. People want enterprise applications to have the same design. Apps with better design and user-friendly interfaces are beginning to replace existing applications that are difficult to use.

　　The era of top-down, company-led product selection is coming to an end. Corporate IT is beginning to democratize and needs to be re-recognized. These trends may be bad news for existing companies, but they offer many opportunities for entrepreneurs who are focused on the corporate market.