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Thoughts, predictions, and hopes for the future |
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Friday, 08 August 2008 |
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Apple will change the gaming and media markets within a few years for the average user. You will buy your games from the AppStore that can play anywhere iTunes lives or you will own a console based solution. I believe OS X will be released for non-Apple hardware and will be a direct competitor to Linux, not Windows, in the near future. The iPhone, Wii, and PS3 will all help to reintroduce us to OpenGL, bye DirectX. Apple TV will blow away Vista MCE, Vudu, and the likes and start that ball rolling as more people look to the internet for their content. The iPhone is already reshaping how we once thought about mobile devices and Linux is following suit. I don't see Microsoft getting it until it's too late – what's new?
Business needs Sun and IBM (maybe even Apple at some point) to move away from old dinosaur mainframes and bloated Windows based desktops/servers. There just isn't as many mainframe programmers as there once was and Windows just isn't cost effective. Sun has the machines to really take over mainframes and Sun would be wise to join forces with Apple and vice versa. There could be some really interesting server technology to come from that. It would really jump start Apple into the whole Enterprise server market and help to carry Sun into the future towards direct competition to IBM, HP, etc...
The poor economy in the U.S. will help to ease another solution in for the big American corporations, which is likely to be Linux, mainly because Linux has become more accepted in recent years, is already popular in other countries, and OSS software has become more mature making it viable to compete with commercial products. This would be, IMO, why OS X is based on Unix, because it was cheaper than developing from the ground up, it plays well in Unix/Linux shops when they start popping up, and can run Linux/Unix OSS software out of the box. This was a tactical move on Apples part just as the Intel version of OS X was – brilliant!
I also see IBM taking over Microsoft Messaging solutions for client and server technologies if Microsoft decides to continue with it's current software lock in strategies, but don't forget Sun Open Office for the business markets either. Novell and Redhat will most likely be big players and I will be interested to see which one becomes main stream in business. Novell working with MS may initially help them, but Redhat has been in this market for awhile so we will see.
I do believe even if I am only partly right, Microsoft will be in a world of hurt. |
