Uh-oh, it’s almost time for my annual technology predictions but, as usual, I will begin by taking a look at my predictions from a year ago, which I fear were pretty dismal. Why I’m the only pundit to voluntarily go through this agony I don’t know, but a cursory look shows that I missed with several predictions that I still believe will happen but my timing was off. Still, wrong is wrong.
In a rare bit of SEO-centrism last year I spread my predictions — right and wrong — over several columns. This year might take more than one as well, because I have a few doozies. But first let’s look at how I did the […]
My last prediction laid out a pretty aggressive 2011 computing strategy for Apple. But it is just that — a computing strategy — not a media strategy, and Steve Jobs is clearly the most important media mogul on the planet right now, and maybe the most fragile. This latter point is important, because Steve sees himself as having both a unique mission and a frail constitution. He can’t wait to get things done, which is why the next couple years will be probably the most important in Apple’s history.
If you put together my 2011 predictions so far they create a world view of tech culture and business as I see it for the coming year. Each prediction builds on the others until we get to these last two, which present a couple boffo conclusions, the big question being “What does Apple need with a 500,000 (soon to be one million) square foot data center in rural North Carolina?”
If 2010 was the year of cloud computing that means 2011 is the year we’ll actually start using it in earnest. That further means 2011 will be the year that cloud computing lets us down. Everything in IT fails eventually, though the big myth is that won’t happen with cloud computing. Hogwash.
Microsoft isn’t going away, but they aren’t going to do a lot of things right in 2011, either. The company’s leadership is stuck, complacent, and just a bit thick. We’ve seen a lot of flux in the executive ranks reporting to CEO Steve Ballmer and I think that’s mainly because Ballmer won’t get out of the way. There is no upward mobility path so people leave. But don’t expect Ballmer to leave in 2011, either, which means more mediocrity. So Microsoft will continue to be a huge presence, but not feared in the industry the way they used to be. They’ve become the new IBM.