Important tech themes in 2017

With CanTech 2017 set to kick off in less than 48 hours, participants are already gearing up to absorb the most important messages coming from the Canadian technology sector this year. Stockhouse had the opportunity to connect with several of these companies, and let them explain in their own words what they see as some of the biggest themes which will be unfolding this year in the tech sector.

Said Matthew Brennan, President of cyber-security company Virtual Armour International Inc (CSE: VAI, Forum), “The macro opportunity for cyber-security is immense if you look at the recent trends. Everyone can see what is happening from a breach standpoint and a hacking standpoint.

The war on cyber-security is going to continue for years to come. According to Gartner, that will be a $1 trillion business by 2020. The opportunity for companies like Virtual Armour who are providing services and solutions to protect companies from such bad actors is paramount. Our entire business is focused on overcoming and solving these challenges.”

Tal Hayek, CEO and Co-Founder of AcuityAds Holdings Inc. (TSX: V.AT, OTCQB: ACUIF, Forum), sees technology changing the face of advertising. “What we’re seeing from the world of advertising, and what we have been seeing for the past few years, is the trend that advertising dollars are moving from other parts of advertising into digital. Therefore the digital advertising space is expanding very, very quickly and will take over a big part of the market share.

In fact, the overall advertising space in general is a $543 billion industry. Out of that, $83 billion is presently in digital advertising. But we’re also seeing that it’s growing at a rate of 22% on a yearly basis. Now inside of that, programmatic marketing, which is the process of buying and selling ads in an automatic way, in real time, is growing at a rate of 47%. My big focus this year is on acquisitions.”

David Croucher, Chief Financial Officer for ProntoForms Corporation (TSX: V.PFM, OTCQB: PPRRF, Forum), wanted to get out the message that there are still emerging opportunities in software, as changing communications technology requires new-and-different platforms for doing business. “We’ve grown quite well in the last several years. The growth really started when the ‘smart’ devices came out about 5 or 6 years ago. It’s important to understand this concept as a lot of our growth is people switching from paper forms to electronic/mobile forms.

There is still plenty of opportunity there. We’ve been investing in our direct sales team and building on that area of growth. We’re seeing the next phase of growth coming from more advanced users. People are starting to not just take advantage of the obvious benefits of moving away from paper, but they are starting to see more value in how they can use that data they are collecting in the field. People are seeing that value and so they are using our product along with our analytics tools.”

Corporate security. Advertising. Data collection. The world of business has been focused on these issues for decades. However, as advancing technology changes the issues which are involved in corporate security, advertising, and data collection, in turn, this creates new opportunities for corporations designing the solutions to those issues.