January 1, 2012 Binary Blogger 2012 Tech Predictions

It's that time of year again. Time for me to layout my ten tech predictions for the new year. 2012 is going to be a very exciting time for IT I see. In the realm of how the world does business there will be a hard and fast wave that may leave people behind and may cause a rift of those who can surf the wave and those that cannot. What I am referring to is the Cloud. The Cloud is not just a neat little offsite storage for your photos and music. From a corporation the Cloud could be a place where you can offload significant IT costs and provide the same services without all the overhead. There are a whole new set of challenges that come along with the Cloud but I am not going into get into Cloud technologies. My predictions for 2012 have many Cloud based themes.

1. Facebook will buy Yahoo - Facebook doesn't have what Google has, easy access to data. The partnership of Facebook and Yahoo recently is a sign that their partnership will grow into a marriage. Take Yahoo's current status as a company and some of the decisions that they have made in the past few years and Facebook taking them over makes sense. Yahoo and Facebook would make a one stop location for information consumption and sharing. They could take on Google Reader, Flipboard, and all the other RSS reader apps by having it all in one spot instead of hooking up via APIs or shared access.
2. Single Login/Account For the Internet - Today as I write this there is a bill going through the works with now knows as SOPA. This bill threatens all freedom we have on the Internet. I think SOPA will fail but will be reborn and focus on the accounts people use. Freedom to use whatever account you want and handle you choose will go under the attack. A new bill will require you to use your full, legal name for all activity on the Internet. No anonymity. Facebook will probably be at the center of the debate and a government verification using your SSN will be in the mix somewhere.
3. The WiiU will be a complete failure - Video games are the future. Call of Duty is a billion dollar franchise. Movies are losing to video games. Nintendo is not seeing this, their mentality around gaming may have worked 10 years ago, but that's not what people want. For a console people want something to fit into their home equipment, HD, big screens, big sound, details, epic games, and social interaction that is easy to use. The Wii was cool but I haven't played mine in months but I play my Xbox360 almost everyday. The WiiU and it's touch tablet controller won't be able to compete with the iPad and the games will not be the HD people want. The WiiU is lining up to be a monster failure.
4. Amazon will have an epic failure with their Cloud - Amazon runs more of the Internet's popular sites than you are aware. I have no doubt that there is redundancy built into their infrastructure but eventually you have to touch the perimiter components that are not as robust as they should be. I see Amazon having a glitch that will take down their service for a large amount of time that will spawn weeks of articles, posts, and conference keynotes that the Cloud is not ready or reliable.
5. Siri will be part of the next Apple OS - Apple will add Siri into every OS going forward for iPhone, iPad, Macs and the new Apple TV. Siri will be used for vocal dictation in document creation. Siri will be the start of the voice controlled Star Trek computing.
6. Apple TV will not use land line cable or satellite, Internet Only - The Apple TV is coming, I think it will be out in 2012. Much like apps, Apple wants TV to be what you want to watch. They will try to break down all the licensing junk and bring ala carte cable TV to your home. Content and who gets on board will be fun to watch but the Apple TV will use your home Internet and not a cable from your local cable company.
7. RIM continues its slow painful death into some equity purchase - RIM is dying if not dead already.  They had their shot and missed at every attempt from either being too late or completely off the mark. They will get bought by an equity firm then sold off in pieces. 
8. Corporations realize that they are exposed, break out the checkbooks - IT security spending and focus is a borderline joke in corporate America. CIOs, CEOs, VPs have not been focusing on security strongly enough over the past decade. Yet these decision makers are pushing for cloud integrations and Internet exposures with a lackluster security plan. The Crown Jewels of the company's IP is asking to get exposed in this Cloud era. Corporations will wise up and start to spend the money on IT security in a big way. 
9. The Cloud will be a consumer and small company service - Big corporations will not commit to the Cloud idea. There is far too much critical data, security concerns, and regulation headaches that come with a Cloud approach. At the end of the day the cost, financial and business, to move things into the Cloud will exceed benefits recieved.
10. The World Will Not End On Dec. 21, 2012 - I have a 50/50 chance on this one.

Here you go. 

End of Line.

Posted in: Technology