After years of being wallflowers at Silicon Valley's hottest tech conferences and Sean Parker's after-parties, enterprise technology firms are now part of the “in†crowd.
The flameouts of social media stocks over the last year have left venture capital firms searching for a more measured approach to investing, writes Nicole Perlroth of The New York Times.
That means technology sectors - including mobile security, data analytics and storage companies and mobile payment systems - which previously elicited a shrug or a snooze, are suddenly finding millions of dollars of investments coming at them.
Some of the hottest innovations are in large-scale data mining. With the right analytical tools, big data can be used to solve complex problems quickly.
New storage methods will be critical to harnessing the gigabytes of data now pouring i n from those mobile devices, as well as the Web, social networks and video.
Increasingly, employees are taking sensitive corporate data home with them, frustrated with the limits of corporate technology and using their personal phones and tablets to work. That has created huge security and compliance headaches for chief information officers struggling to regain control over corporate data.
It may not be the end of paper money just yet, but more and more commercial products are making mobile payments a huge business.
Apps, with the proverbial “touch of a button,†have converted phones into urban remote controls, allowing customers to order meals, errands, car rides, concert tickets and even cocktails.
