The link below is to an article at silicon.com predicting winners and losers in 2004. Linux is in the first list for servers and the second for client side, partly because of the unnecessary, confusing and destructive battle between KDE and Gnome. While I don't necessarily agree completely with the article I think it has some fair points.
http://www.silicon.com/management/ itdirector/0,39024673,39117578,00.htm?nl=e20040106
I'd also like to predict some more losers:
1 The public wi-fi access point. As long as prices stay where they are, that is. 2 Java as a client-side solution, given the increasing bloat with every version release. (That may well apply to .NET too, for the same reason, but I wouldn't know.) Why in hell can't Sun or IBM modularise the thing so if you don't want it all you don't have to download it (or force your customers to)? 3 Sun - already in the loser list, but for the additional reason that they don't understand end-users. Some fine ideas but seemingly targetted at a world that won't exist for another five or more years. 4 Anyone who expected broadband to be taken up by every Mom and Pop in the land. 5 Mom and Pop, who can't download the service patches from Microsoft and thus catch every virus and worm going. Nice to think Linux could gallop along on its white horse and save the day, but it's too fragmented and difficult for said Mom and Pop to set up. After all, ain't nobody else gonna do it for them.
And just to show I'm not all negative, a winner:
Computer users everywhere, able to use an increasing base of good-quality free software as an alternative to overpriced commercial stuff or nag'n'bitch shareware. When this trend gets far enough along, coupled with much better standards than at present and making source downloads a LOT easier to use, Linux may emerge as a viable desktop candidate for ordinary people.
-- GT
On Tuesday 06 Jan 2004 5:39 pm, Syd Hancock wrote:
Cringely's predictions:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040101.html
Syd
All pretty standard and fairly middle of the road, boring motherhood etc. Not really sticking his neck out is he?
Ian
Ian Bell wrote:
All pretty standard and fairly middle of the road, boring motherhood etc. Not really sticking his neck out is he?
Due to the general lack of technology news over the Christmas/New Year break there have been quite a few of these "Predictions for 2004" by various people. I've read a handful and I reckon I have 2004 just about sussed:
I predict that Microsoft will go bankrupt and mobile phones will be entirely replaced by a long distance whistling language I heard about on Five Live by mid 2004.
I also predict that BT will declare that the use of its telephone lines is completely free of charge and will sponsor the rolling out of a wireless telecommunications system run by communities and based on the 802.11h standard wifi kit that the IEEE will verify a hundred new products per week.
By late February new Spam laws will have almost completely iradicated unsolicited emails and ISPs will drop the amount they charge by 93% due to the decrease in traffic and the sudden availabilty of a cheap and reliable network.
The RIAA will buy out magnatune.com and offer all of its music in ogg vorbis format under creative commons licenses with a voluntary donation for each album. This will cause the end of Pop music as we know it and Simon Cowell will get a job in Macdonalds which will have switched to selling only organic salad dishes and mineral water.
SCO will release all of the code it has ever written under the GPL and offer a free plush penguin to all the people it asked for money from in way of apology.
RedHat will implement Debian's package management system and the KDE and Gnome projects will start a joint effort to make Linux more user friendly than Apple Macs causing all the Apple developers to leave their jobs to help out.
Elvis will finally return to earth in his pink space ship to be at the official opening of William Fences' new ice rink in the fiery depths of hell, funded entirely by Disney on Ice.
On 7 Jan 2004, at 00:55, Ben Francis wrote:
Elvis will finally return to earth in his pink space ship to be at the official opening of William Fences' new ice rink in the fiery depths of hell, funded entirely by Disney on Ice.
Holy crap, I want to see that!
Meanwhile back to the real world...
C
Cringely's predictions:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040101.html
Syd
All pretty standard and fairly middle of the road, boring motherhood etc. Not really sticking his neck out is he?
True - but maybe he prefers to try and be accurate not sensationalist :-)
On Wednesday 07 Jan 2004 6:14 am, Syd Hancock wrote:
Cringely's predictions:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040101.html
Syd
All pretty standard and fairly middle of the road, boring motherhood etc. Not really sticking his neck out is he?
True - but maybe he prefers to try and be accurate not sensationalist :-)
True but it is very easy to be accurate in some areas. For example, Tony Blair will have trouble this year with Iraq, University top up fees, taxes and the new leader on the Conservatives. But that is just simple motherhood. I would hope someone with his ear truly to the ground would have come up with something likley but not obvious to the majority. Here's my shot. Gordon brown will lead labour shortlyafter the next general election and not before.
Ian
P.S Sorry to sully the group with political crap.
Syd Hancock syd@toufol.com writes:
Cringely's predictions:
| 5) The SCO debacle has created a crisis within the Linux | community. They pretend that it hasn't, but it has. This will come | to a head in 2004 with either the development of a new | organizational structure for Linux or the start of its | demise. Linux has to grow or die, and the direction it takes will | be determined in 2004.
I think the assertions here need justification.
* What exactly is the crisis? SCO haven't caused Linux development to stop. They've not caused features to be removed. They've not bankrupted Linus. As Cringely's following point suggested it'll probably do none of these things in the future either. So what's the problem?
* Why does Linux need a "new organizational structure"? It seems to be doing pretty well as it is, actually.
* Why does Linux need to "grow or die"? It's not a dot-com bubble company or an empire founded on conquest. It does need to adapt to changing conditions (e.g. new hardware) if it is not to eventually fall into the domain of retrocomputing but I don't think that's really "growth".
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Craig -
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Syd Hancock