Bill's Predictions for 2009

I hate predictions for the New Year but I have no self-control so here goes.

Solid State Drives
This is one I made two years ago and is probably my most accurate prediction of the past.  The market has been flooded with solid state memory and some companies have scaled back production in an effort to keep prices stable. As the year goes on, the cost of SSD’s will come down and the size and speed will go up.

Year of the Laptop/Netbook
Even though we’re getting a new Windows this year, sales of Desktops won’t come close to the increase in large laptops and small netbooks. Companies will try their best to differentiate themselves from the competitors. Lenovo is even coming out with a ThinkPad with a screen that slides out to provide a dual screen experience.

3G Networks When Traveling
I have discovered when I travel Wi-Fi coverage can be spotty. Hotels which boast high speed Wi-Fi connections but they aren’t doing a very good job. Even at a recent Microsoft conference I ended up using my Verizon EV-DO connection because it was faster than the Wi-Fi provided. Currently the best reason to use 3G over WiFi is security. Keep your WiFi networking at home and use 3G when you travel.

Cloud Computing Will Be Boring
I’ll admit I’m not a fan of Cloud Computing. As far as I’m concerned I’ve already done Cloud Computing, it was called a main frame and dumb terminals. The reason we got rid of main frames wasn’t just COBOL.

Newspapers Will Want a Bail out
While television still tops our source of news, a recent Pew study said for the first time the Internet has passed newspapers as a more popular source of news. We will see the failure of many newspapers and you can bet they’ll go to Congress for help in keeping the news print tradition alive.

Windows 7 Won’t Suck
What I’ve seen so far of Windows 7 is promising and I think many people really really want it to succeed. My real prediction is the Microsoft will actually price Windows 7 so that people might actually buy it instead of trying to get a copy from their friend. When Vista first came out Bill Gates said it would be “less than a hundred dollars”.  That was the price for Vista Basic which was useless and a downgrade from Windows XP. Expect fewer versions of Windows 7 to be available to ease the confusion.

What are your predictions? Disagree? Click on the Comments link below.

 

 

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Death to the DVD Disc is Coming

No, I’m not joining those who have predicted that Sony’s Blu-ray has won over HD-DVD. What I’m suggesting is the optical disc format has reached it’s peak and will go the way of the cassette tape.

The battle between Blu-Ray and HD–DVD format hasn’t helped. Even with Warner Brothers exclusively backing the Blu-Ray Association, sales of movies on disc has been on the decline. This week at CES a lot of folks are calling Blu-Ray a winner even though the adult industry and Microsoft has backed HD-DVD.

Some have also said Microsoft wants both to fail because “They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads.” I say, “It worked!”. In fact today, Microsoft acknowledged it is backing off plans to promote HD-DVD exclusively in its xBox game console.

Advocates for both claim superior video and audio but they’re missing what consumers want. There’s a point where the average human can’t detect the differences in sound and appearance. If anything, the increases in clarity can show more flaws in productions. Why would I pay $20+ for disc when I can just download the movie to my PC or TiVo for $12 or less.

The future media is Solid State Memory or what’s commonly called Flash memory. I wrote about this a year ago, and I’ll stick by last years prediction.

Granted a Blu-ray DVD can hold 25 GB’s per layer it’s only a matter of time before we see an explosion in Flash(NAND) memory size. HD-DVD only holds 15 GB per layer. Yesterday at CES SanDisk introduced a new 12 GB microSDHD card. SanDisk calculates with 12 GB you can store a 24.5 hours of video along with 2,600 photos and 1,500 songs.

While the size and cost of flash memory isn’t there yet it’s coming. It’s not likely I can fit a Blu-ray disc into my Phone, GPS or video camera. No moving parts or lasers means my battery will last a lot longer watching a movie from flash memory. It’s also much easier and cheaper to build a flash memory slot into a new TV or other home appliance than it is a disc player.

My new OLPC XO laptop isn’t the first laptop to choose a flash drive in place of a mechanical hard drive and DVD and it won’t be the last. No moving parts, minimal power consumption, well over 100,000 write cycles, all means my next laptop will include a solid state drive instead of a legacy hard drive. I won’t miss trying to figure out if my DVD player supports +R – R, +RW or -RW.

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