When the year winds down, looking back or looking forward is usually the done thing. I clearly prefer the latter. I stick my neck out for five technology things that I believe are likely to storm the world in 2010.
Smartbooks/tablets: A laptop/netbook loaded with SIM card seems like a godsend mixing the twin conveniences of powerful applications on the go and sheer mobility. Apple’s much-rumoured tablet sent its stock surging last week and right here in India, Olive launched a netbook (Internet-friendly cheap laptop) loaded with a 3G facility. I see a future in which people will have two SIM cards, one in a handset and one in a laptop.
E-books: Amazon’s Kindle has only just hit India, while Google has come out with Fast Flip, a technology that enables a real book-like experience on the Web to help us read magazines and books with the old look and feel. I expect e-books and e-readers to catch on and get cheaper.
Android on steroids: Google’s Android platform to make really-loaded smartphones cheap has taken off with brands like Motorola’s Cliq. Google’s own Nexus One is on the way. I expect smartphones at prices as low as Rs. 5,000 to flood the market. Very smart but really cheap.
Branded Cloud: We are already doing cloud computing, thank you. From the free add-on to Salesforce.com that offers companies fairly advanced software platforms on the Web, the business of using the Net as a “cloud” to offer software service is hot. But it is still a vague business, especially for larger, smarter applications. I expect IBM and/or Cisco to leap ahead with a one-stop-shop brand to match.
MS Office 2010: I expect the next Microsoft Office — which is ramping up collaborative features and Net publishing in a big way — to be really cool, with an affordable Web-based “cloud” service.
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