Should you be passing this blog, I wish you all the very best for 2010 !
While winter weather is paralyzing everything here, I thought I should join the list of predictions for the new year, with a few things that are top of my mind at the moment. Heck, I can always delete this post in December... So here we go:
- The trend in cloud computing will continue - everything moves to the cloud this year. Not only for applications in datacenters, but also our personal stuff. Online storage and backup are already pervasive, as is Gmail and Google Apps. The success of netbooks is testimony of this trend; why run a mail client that you have to setup, backup, run antivirus on when you can just connect to mail in a browser. The same is true for simple office docs. Now complete OS desktops are offered in a browser, not only iGoogle, but contenders like EyeOS. The advantage for organizations like schools, hospitals and admin workers in companies is clear, no longer do you have to maintain desktops with upgrade and maintenance woes, you just need a browser to connect to a central server or the internet. Even on a smartphone.
This is also the success of our own Sun VDI technology and Sunray thin clients, customers save massively on investment and maintenance by offering virtual desktops to their employees. Heck, we have been using it ourselves for years.
- related to the previous point I expect Apple to do something major in the cloud with iWork and/or iLife... Their MobileMe services have improved steadily - have you tried 'Locate your iPhone ?' - but their software packages are over a year old. iWeb in particular is lacking in features compared to other web/blog platforms, an iPhone client for example is overdue for posting. Other companies already offer online editing and tricks on movies you upload. Will we see an online version of iMovie that can rival with Animoto ? Apple has reportedly bought a site for a big datacenter in North Carolina....
- In Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) - a part of cloud computing - you will see more and more offerings for private clouds. Why ? Again it makes sense where the money is, it is the next step in virtualization. Instead of putting a big virtualization server in a datacenter, you rent the services online or a central department offers it. My favourite example is a company or government with a lot of satellite office, do you rather put a little mail server in each office, with all the maintenance, airco and security it requires, or do you offer a virtual mail server that people can configure online ? In Belgium we have partners like Aserver who are very far in offering these services. Expect more to come.
- This is the year of the ebook reader. Amazon is already succesful with the Kindle and Barnes and Noble have the Nook. I think it will be similar to the iPod revolution when Apple comes out with their tablet/ebook reader, presumably called "iSlate". Remember others had MP3 players on the market - remember the Rio ? - when Apple arrived. Déjà Vu... It will also be the year of the tablet. Everyone has tried it, we had the Compaq Aero more than 10 years ago when I was at Compaq, there even was a Mac clone tablet two years ago at MacWorld, but it takes the Apple effect to make another iPhone or iPod revolution in tablets....
- 2010 will also be the year of streaming; we do not buy CDs or DVDs anymore, youth do not even buy on iTunes anymore, they use services like Last.FM or Spotify to stream music. Apple has made some acquisitions here, so expect the next iTunes to offer more streaming options besides internet radio. We are buying less and less discs and services like Hulu in the US now allow you to stream your favourite TV shows instead of downloading them.
- I think 2010 will also be the year Google comes out as the new Evil Empire, competing with the old Microsoft; people still see them as the friendly search engine that offer free stuff like mail. But they now also offer DNS services, they launched a phone OS with Android and now launched their own phone hardware with the Nexus One. Google selling hardware, people ! Less than a month ago the rumours said this was a project for internal employees only... They want to be everywhere and they know everything about us. I predict that either there will be a clash with some privacy groups soon, regulatory organizations or a major privacy incident... Oh, yes, I did not mention Google Wave, because that is simply going nowhere, everyone is still trying to find a use for it. And the fact that Novell now endorses it is more a curse than a blessing with their track record...
- Some things are also bound to evolve in social networking, Twitter continues to do fine because it is such a simple, direct medium. Facebook is starting to suffer from their own privacy policies and more and more wackos joining. We just had a major story here in Belgium where a news anchor, Linda De Win, gets hate groups and death threats on Facebook because... she won a few episodes of "De Slimste Mens", a quizz... Friendfeed is already fading, but I think now more and more people wil get wary of the MySpace, Facebook, Netlogs and Hyves of this world... I am even considering quitting Facebook myself, all I do there is reading updates from people I like. There was a very insightful discussion in a TWiT podcast some moths ago about how the blog remains the center of social media, but we will see more and more blogs that have a different presentation from the timeline we see now.
That's about it folks, my head fills more and more with ideas as I write this... but I will keep those ideas for my next entries, because we need new year's resolutions of course, like updating your blog more frequently. As always, let me know what you think.
