In 2015, we will see the rise of the API economy in which business leaders will deliver APIs as products to their customers. We will also see a growing number of wearable devices in the enterprise. 2015 will also be the year in which connected devices and APIs will change the way retail shoppers purchase products forever. This is all according to Ross Mason, founder of MuleSoft, Inc., a provider of an integration platform for connecting SaaS and enterprise apps in the cloud and on-premise.

Mason’s predictions around the application programming interface (API) economy and wearable technology are all part of our second annual Technology Predictions series in which industry experts share their predictions with us about the hot tech trends that they think will take center stage in 2015. We’ll be sharing all of their predictions with you over the next several days. Read on for more from Mason.

.

.

Prediction No. 1: The rise of the API Economy

APIs will change the way companies build value and compete in 2015. Businesses recognize that their APIs drive competitive advantage by allowing other companies and their customers to create new products and solutions with them. This creates more value around their offerings, which means more solutions for their customers. While IT will still be responsible for back-end connectivity, we will see a shift in which business leaders will own more of the responsibility and strategy around delivering APIs as products to their customers.

.

Prediction No. 2: Mobile adoption this past holiday season: a warm-up for 2015

This past holiday season, Santa delivered a sleigh full of tablets and smartphones on which consumers are expected to download billion of apps. From mobile commerce to mobile marketing and promotions, businesses will need to be ready for this massive revenue opportunity. To avoid their CIO’s “Naughty List” in 2015, IT teams will need to act quickly to consolidate the digital data from these apps and devices to deliver mobile experiences that drive the bottom line. In 2015, we will see a growing number of wearable devices in the enterprise, so the mobile surge this past holiday season was just a warm-up for the pressures facing CIOs in 2015.

.

Prediction No. 3: 2015 will be the year of smartphone fragmentation

With watches, glasses and earpieces all getting smarter and learning to talk to one another, individuals will be able to access certain app’s features from their watches without using their smartphone. They will be doing more and more with their smartphone in their pocket and, therefore, the smartphone’s importance will diminish considerably.

.

Prediction No. 4: Connected devices and APIs will change retail forever

When the holiday shopping season kicked off this season, the distinction between online shopping and in-store shopping was not clear: Black Friday became the new Cyber Monday and Cyber Monday became the new Black Friday. New technology drove this trend; specifically, the introduction of connected kiosks or “endless aisles” in stores as well as APIs that offer new, online inventory to in-store shoppers. In 2015, connected devices and APIs will continue to allow major retailers to deliver a huge breadth of products to in-store customers—products from their own website as well as their partners’.

Here’s an example of how it could work. Foot Locker, Inc. has in-store kiosks that allow customers to browse shoes that they’ve tried on in the store but that they’d like in a different color, size or style. Not only can they tap into the inventory that Foot Locker carries but they can also access entire collections offered by other brands. They can then purchase the shoe without even leaving the store. This past holiday shopping season, customers already leveraged the Web (while still in the store) to order their favorite goods and gifts, through one seamless process. In 2015, we will see this trend take off.

.

2015 Technology Predictions graphic courtesy of SiliconANGLE