Tech Predictions for 2008

Every year at this time I venture forth with my predictions for the New Year. Early in my career, I would foolishly try and predict as much as ten years out, but in a world where technology changes so fast, ten-year predictions are almost worthless these days.

I have become more pragmatic in my old age, and now I try to focus on what I think will be the key industry issues or trends for the next year or two. How accurate am I? Check out my predictions from last year or the previous year or for 2005.

If you read any of my previous predictions, you will notice that they are relatively accurate. This is not to brag, but to point out that the technologies I research typically have their biggest impact 12 to 18 months out.

With that in mind, here are my predictions for 2008:

1. Smartphones Get Smarter and Gain Market Share.
This is not a new prediction, as I have mentioned it in one form or another for the last two years. However, there are two key changes in 2008's prediction. First, we now believe smartphones will get even smarter, thanks to increased processing power, mobile operating systems that gain more functionality (including full Web browsers), and connections to faster wireless networks. Apple has already shown us that you can put the Internet in your pocket via something as small as a smartphone, and the competition is going to school on Apple—big time. In fact, when we look back at 2008, I believe one of the major industry themes will be how the creation of mobile devices that deliver the Internet in your pocket caused a paradigm shift in mobility and drove major changes in the way even mainstream consumers view personal mobility.

The second key change is that even mainstream cell phones will gain more intelligence and help expand the market share of smartphones. Thanks to Google's Android platform, as well as vendors like Palm, RIM, Motorola, and others making their mainstream cell phones more intelligent, we believe that by the end of 2008 smartphones will represent as much as 15 percent of the overall 1.2 billion cell phones sold worldwide in the course of the year, up from a market penetration of around 8 percent today. And by the end of 2009, we now believe smartphones will make up as much as 25 percent of all cell phones sold.

2. Flash-Based Laptops Arrive.
There are a lot of rumors swirling about Apple introducing a flash-based laptop at MacWorld in January. While I have no clue if that is actually going to happen, I do believe that we will see at least one flash-based laptop of some type come from each of the major PC vendors. More important, these new clamshell laptops will introduce a new concept in ultraportables. Although flash memory is coming down in price, I believe most of these new flash-based ultraportables will have only 16GB, 32GB, or, at best, 64GB hard drives on them to keep prices down. This means that people will have to use them differently, and we could see a new class of laptop computers emerge that I call mobile companions. Hard drives in most of today's laptops start at 80GB, although many now sport 120GB and even 180GB.

Given the capacities of these new flash-based clamshell laptops, it's unlikely that they will provide access to full applications or provide rich Web browsing—they'll have limitations much like those of today's BlackBerrys or smartphones. They will require some type of UI that lets you tell your main PC what files you want to take with you, and then enables syncing each time your laptop and your main PC are reconnected. To make this work, you will also need a built-in GoToMyPC-like Internet connection to your PC back home in case you need something while on the road. Look for at least five new flash-based mobile companions to be on the market by the end of 2008, and expect them to be one of the industry's hot topics in the coming year.

3. The Introduction of the "Basic PC."
Next year we will see a real push to create "basic PCs," bare-bones computers priced around $275 to $350 and targeted at emerging markets. We've already seen similar products, such as the XO-1 laptop by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative and the ASUS Eee PC 4G, but they represent the tip of the iceberg in this category. And don't be surprised if this type of PC gets serious attention as a second, third, or even fourth PC for consumer homes.

4. Social Networks Are Targeted by Botnets.
As social networks gain in popularity, I expect them to become the next major target for security threats. Botnets will find their way into these networks and inflict all kinds of new security problems, including identity theft. McAfee, Symantec, Microsoft, and even Apple are aware of these threats and are working hard to prevent them, but social networks will suffer invasion.

5. Smartphones Become Targets for Viruses and Identity Theft.
As smartphones gain market share, become more popular and powerful, and deliver greater Web access, they will attract the criminal element. I believe that in 2008 they will also become major targets for botnets, viruses, and identity theft. This will be a big problem, as there aren't a lot of great security tools for these smart mobile platforms. All of the security software vendors see this coming, but right now they're creating their tools only for use within the Windows, Linux, Unix, and Mac environments. Soon they will have to deal with at least five major smartphone OS platforms as well.