A recent TMCnet article states that the technologies expected to “shine” in 2011 are those that enable mobility. In an interview with Adam Conway, Vice President of Product Management for Aerohive Networks, Mr. Conway pointed to cloud technology as being the most significant technology trend in 2010.

Other questions covered in the interview can be viewed below.  The full interview can be viewed here.

What impact will mobile technology have on the tech space in 2011?

Over the last several years, the adoption of smartphones and the introduction of tablets has enabled the introduction of real applications to lightweight mobile devices. Beyond basic games, document readers and the like – we are seeing things like Citrix and VDI making its way onto the iPad. This has the potential to be a real game changer in IT. While knowledge workers have taken to iPads for note taking and convenience tasks, the real opportunities are to cost effectively roll out enterprise applications in a mobile setting. With VDI, applications that are not ready for WiFi or mobile handsets can be made mobile, and the beauty of VDI is that there is no data stored on the mobile device. Examples of applications we have seen are point of care applications for skilled nursing, picking applications for warehouses, line busting applications for retail and more. I am convinced we are just seeing the beginning of what will change the way that enterprise applications are delivered.

Where are the best opportunities in the tech space this year?

All of the interesting action is happening around mobility – almost everybody uses laptops rather than desktops, smartphone adoption is ramping, and cloud apps are available everywhere. Technologies that enable mobility, like wireless, are poised to reap the benefits.

How can technology change the world for the better?

In my opinion education is the best opportunity – as laptops and internet connections have dropped in price – accessibility to information is unprecedented.

What impact has social media had on how you interact with your customers?

How do you measure its effectiveness? Social media has allowed us to be more nimble in how we engage with customers. Using the most popular social media platforms – the Aerohive blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube – we are able to be a part of the online conversation throughout the day. Whether we are tweeting about a customer win, blogging about a cool new feature or commenting on a Facebook post about hot industry trends, we’ve found that social media is allowing us to get our message out as we’ve never been able to do before.