I was reading my previous blog entries from last year, and especially the predictions - now at least a year and a half old. Although they were intended to cover a 2 to 3 years time frame - not yet passed - a few excerpts made me smile by how off they were but more often than not how accurate they were already. You be the judges.
There is no denying that in these few months, Apple has reshaped the mobile phone industry, has consolidated the iTunes position as music retailer, and has been pulling the whole PC industry upwards in its wake. Most investors expect the company to be at least as rich and powerful as Microsoft is today, in less than a year. Impressive.
In September last year, a company I was working for decided to bypass my recommendations and opted instead to tie themselves up further with Microsoft, spending a few dozens of thousands of pounds on hardware and licenses - which, in truth, are sold at bargain prices to charities. Although it was an enormous blow for my confidence and self worth - after so many years consulting - I am beginning to feel vindicated by the ever increasing number of organizations - some as big as 35,000 users - moving to Google Apps. We are talking about companies or institutions that are headed by very cautious high calibre executives:
In the midst of the heartache, I was consoled somewhat by finding it out that the aforementioned organization has since moved a very restrictive database application to a solution 'in the cloud', which enables sharing, gives better data integrity and up to date information. This was something I had been advocating for a while.
Finally, a note on the whole Windows 7/ Linux thing. The more I use Open Source, the more I am impressed by the breadth, depth, and innovation pace, of the applications.
- The newest version of Evolution is so stable, it's a joy to use, and it compares well with Outlook.
- OpenErp is just incredible; not only it's free, but it is so complete as an erp/crm/finance/hr solution. Its client is java-based so OS agnostic. Just outstanding
- LMMS is now a truly great midi studio and sequencer.
- OpenOffice is also starting to concentrate on performance as well as features and versions 3.x are very good (OxygenOffice is its best incarnation)
- uBuntu is now remarkable. Although the beta version of Karmic Koala has understandable kinks, it is so good already that I now loathe using XP or Vista (except for using Chrome). You should try it from within Windows - using wubi.
Whatever Microsoft is trying to impress upon the public with Windows 7 is already available on Linux. Even games play nicely with Wines!
The promising technology of the moment is wifi direct, who will compete with - and probably supplant - Bluetooth.
802.11.n is now ratified. Expect it to become the de-facto for all wifi networks. Price will go down. That's great news.
Apple's MiniDisplay port has now been officially adopted by VESA, so expect DVI/miniDVI ports to be phased out. it's good for video output.
Any thought?
