Forecast 2010: Technological changes will continue

SHARED OS MARKET

What may change, is the operating system of the PC. Windows will continue to be the dominant OS for at least the first half of the decade. But alternative solutions will gain momentum. Linux is one little engine that thinks it can. With the kind of money being poured into Linux OS and application development right now, all signs point towards growth for Linux.

Initially, that will come mostly on the server side where Linux is regarded as superior to Windows NT for mail serving, Web site hosting and file serving functions. Even Microsoft’s own HotMail e-mail service continues to run on Linux after efforts to change to Windows NT failed embarrassingly. As the Linux OS gets more robust, it be able to displace NT servers in larger and larger organizations. On the desktop, the lack of good business applications software will keep the Linux user community relatively small for the next couple of years. But an entire generation of university computer and engineering students is currently growing up on Linux. That is bound to have an impact on the overall computer market. Many of these graduating engineers and programmers are unlikely to rely on the Windows platform when designing new products and applications.

The competition from Linux may actually be good for Windows devotees as well. Microsoft will have little choice but to make its software more reliable … and cheaper. Microsoft’s NT business group may soon find out what the Netscape learned when Microsoft unleashed a free Internet Explorer browser; competing with something that is just as good, but free, is highly destructive to your business plans. Besides free, Linux is highly scalable and likely to become the operating system of choice in many Web appliances, ensuring that these devices operate without freezing up or producing the all-too-familiar "BSOD" Blue Screen Of Death) that has been driving Windows users up the wall for years.

Speaking about Microsoft, by 2005, that company is not likely to be the same it is today. An avalanche of antitrust lawsuits has begun to rain down on the software giant in the aftermath of Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s finding that Microsoft is a monopoly and that it has been misusing its monopoly power to suppress competition. No matter how much Microsoft disagrees, publicly or privately, settling the antitrust case as a way out of the legal mess is looking more lucrative with each passing day. Barring a decision to fight the federal, state and private lawsuits to the bitter end at whatever expense, there will be a new Microsoft in the first decade. A break-up is still highly conceivable. At the very least, the company will be severely crippled and will likely have to share part of the Windows OS so computer companies and software developers can develop products that will allow their products to distinguish themselves from competitors.

The Windows desktop, not exactly a model of innovative design, is likely to be gone from most desktops as computer companies will be free to develop their own user interface. No matter in what form Microsoft evolves, the company -- or "Baby Bills" as any spin offs will likely be called -- will continue to have a major, if not dominating impact on the computer industry, the Internet, and markets, such as cable television, which is also being drawn into the realm of the Internet and in which Microsoft has been investing heavily.

Among the things that is almost certain to happen over the next several years is a continued explosion in innovation. The combination of a broad variety of new low-cost computer and communications technologies and the Internet has brought forth a new era of opportunity for start-ups. A new trend, however, is that many promising start-ups are being swallowed up by bigger players eager to acquire any missing pieces in the technology puzzle. Cisco Systems has acquired some 60 companies in the past five years and has plans for several dozen more.

By en large, this is a good trend. Good for the entrepreneurs who end up with huge amounts of money, much of which they will undoubtedly invest in new ventures. It is also good for the invention, which has a much better chance of quickly being made available and marketed to a global market, something that is beyond the ability of most start-ups. And in the end it is good for the consumer, who ends up benefiting from the invention in their personal or business use.

Likely, the bulk of the innovations will continue to sprout up from the fertile grounds of the Silicon Valley. The infrastructure to support entrepreneurs has grown only stronger in the past five years with billions of dollars in venture capital being dispersed annually by the venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road in San Mateo. Even the Pentagon recently set up shop in one of the VC office buildings along Highway 92, hoping to fund ventures with high military application value.

And finally then there are the technologies that everyone expects to do well in the coming decade, but which may not evolve much at all. One is virtual reality. Already a decade has gone by since the first generation of VR headsets became available for consumers. But this has clearly been one of the more disappointing of the promising technologies.

I tried on a VR set at Comdex and despite all of the hype, the visuals were not much better than 5 years ago. This market is clearly waiting for a killer application that can drive demand, which in turn will get the investment engines rolling to drive and accelerate further development. Voice recognition is another area where the market has been slow to respond to what amounts to some spectacular technology developments. But voice-operated computers, as a standard system feature, are still way out on the horizon. Most people have only limited use for such convenience. The psychological barrier to being seen talking to a machine remains too high.

The same goes for video phone calls. The technology is here but the demand is not. Most people are far more comfortable and effective during a business or social call when just talking on the telephone than when also being seen. Like voice recognition, video telephones will remain a niche market. And the computerized home will probably remain an illusion for some time to come. Predictions have been made in the past year or so of every appliance and gadget coming equipped with its own IP address so you can access them through your family Web site.

Technology for home automation and remote control has been around for much of the past decade. The reality is that most people don’t want to go through all the trouble of learning how to set it up, control and use it. It takes a lot of discipline to manage a computerized home. And after a hard day’s work, who wants to put up with problems in the home network, add visiting Uncle Louis and Aunt Amy as "clients" to the file and mail server and get them a password to access anything from the toaster to the front door.

People will settle for a better television picture and HDTV will likely become a standard in most homes in the latter part of the decade. So will recordable DVDs assuming the industry won’t incorporate too many limiting restrictions. I would like to be able to use this medium to copy 8 hours worth of my CD music onto a single disk, or two hours worth of special effect highlights from a James Bond collection.

Like the Internet itself, which really is still in the early stages of development and five or more years from reaching any kind of maturity, most areas of technology are still racing ahead or getting just out of the starting gates. If anything the next 10 years will bring an almost overwhelming barrage of new products, technologies and choices for consumers and businesses alike. If you’ve been amazed at the progress we’ve seen since 1990, well, you just ain’t seen nothing yet.