OK, this is a little late — should be done right before or right after the year switch, but whatever.

Here are some issues that I see as issues for this coming year, and what they will be. I have this information on no reliable authority….

• Sun Microsystems: Boy, this is going to be a tough year for Sun. They are the Apple of Unices — make their own boxes, which contain their own chips, which run their own OS… (Yes, Motorola makes the PowerPC for Apple, I know…). While Sun boxes are still the heavy hitters — the best bang out there — they are not the best bang for your buck. IBM, with Linux, is really eroding the “need Sun for heavy lifting” mentality. And Compaq (oops…H/P [Hewlett Packard] ) is desperate for UNIX revenue, as well, and they are doing a Linux play, too. Nowadays MS isn’t even on Sun’s radar screen — Linux is. Sun has to do something, and I think that “something” is Java: This is the year that Sun will figure out (for better or worse) just what to do with Java. Essentially, how to make money off it. Because the server business is looking grim for them.
• Apple: Speaking of Apple, it seems like every year is a good time to trot out the “Apple will finally die this year” type of talk. And every year, this death is greatly exaggerated. I don’t know, I think this will be a relatively uneventful year for Apple (MacExpo opens tomorrow; I could be proved way wrong very quickly). I think they will keep goosing existing products, stabilizing and enhancing them. I don’t see any large inroads being made by the company. While they are capable of making a killer tablet PC, there is no real demand for these products beyond the whiz-bang effect. And the tablets that have thus far come out are more expensive than notebooks; Apple, with it’s tradition of more expensive than PCs for same type of product (ignore the quality factor), would be foolish to follow this lead. But what do I know?
• Microsoft: It will continue to take flack for continuing security lapses, Passport will somehow develop/display a serious issue that needs attention, it will delay Longhorn and Yukon again (actually, a good thing — release when ready, not to fit a schedule), it will continue to take fire for questionable business practices, it will actually listen to the customer and revamp some of its licensing agreements (actually listening to the bottom line), it will continue to make gobs of money…but at a slightly slackened pace. Also: By year’s end, the .Net Web services architecture will be still pretty much in the prototype stage. No common use (I could be wrong on this one) [Edit: Just read on news.com a few minutes after I wrote this that MSN messenger has gone dark for many — and this has a .Net backend component. Ha!]
• Privacy: While a couple of recent court rulings hold some hope for the notion of personal freedom and privacy, as long as John Ashcroft is Attorney General, things will be grim for the freedom types. Why no outcry over this continual trampling of civil rights, from ignoring the Freedom of Information Act when it’s convenient to detaining Americans (“…home of the free….”) without any due process? Two numbers: 9 & 11. Yeah. But he keeps pushing things, and I think there will be a backlash at some point. This year? I don’t think so, and the following year is an election year, so he’ll probably tread more softly then. * sigh *
• Computers: As with the last couple of years, sales will remain soft, and there really won’t be much incentive to get a new computer. Sure, a tad faster, larger hard drive…but minor differences, really. For example, my 1Ghz machine has an 80G drive. Plenty fast enough, and I probably have about 50G free. Would I like a newer, faster computer? Sure! Do I need a newer, faster computer? Hell no. And I think a lot of folks are in this boat. And with the economy in the dumpster, why shell out still substantial bucks (for a decent system) for something that is not a need?
• Speaking of the economy… How should I know? I had to guess, I would say that it won’t get worse, but if there is an uptick this year, it will be moderate. And that damn spectre of war hangs over all like the Sword of Damecles(sp?).
• Wireless: By this I mean Wi-Fi, not cell phones/blackberries etc. This will be huge this year, and the introduction of the 802.11g standand will effectively end the short appearance of 802.11a (fast, but G is compatible with the slow but omnipresent 802.11b standard; same frequency, 2.4 Ghz). More and more business and — especially — homes will make this an almost de-facto standard for PCs and other such stuff. What of Bluetooth? Damn good question. I still can’t believe it hasn’t make inroads. Hell, I have a spaghetti bowl of wires around my computer table, as I’m sure we all do. Anyway… Wi-Fi will help tremendously with home and business networking, and the 54Mps speed means that even the boxes I have hard wired (both to save buying a Wi-Fi card and because the T-Base100 is faster than 11Mps from 802.11b) might eventually become unteathered. NOTE: Wi-Fi vendors are going to have to do something about security, the WEP is a joke (but better than nothing). This may be an issue in the coming year with wider deployments. Think the government will allow free use of more — better — bandlwidths in the coming year? This is a definite possibility, but may not be addressed (especially if there is more of this stupid war stuff).