2008 Predictions
Posted January 2nd, 2008 @ 12:13pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Post in the comments with your 2008 predictions for the wild and woolly world of technology. Check back in a year to see how many of your predictions hold up.
Mine are, in no particular order and heavy on the Apple stuff, as follows:
- Apple will introduce no new hardware - just updates to current products (including any subnotebooks, which will still be "MacBook-like;" a tablet would count as "new," though).
- AAPL will wander north of $250.
- Apple will reach their goal of selling 10M iPhones.
- "Swanni" is wrong - AppleTV will be updated and will begin to sell even more.
- Apple will sign another major label to sell DRM-free music.
- One of the last bottlenecks in computing - the rotating platter hard disk - will start to die. We'll begin seeing flash memory disks in computers.
- Nintendo will get its act together and ship enough Wiis, but not for many, many months.
- There won't be a winner in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war, and the possibility of a third "joint" format will begin to take hold.
- Consumer apathy regarding CDs and DVDs will reach an all-time high. The RIAA will continue to piss people off and the DVD format wars will alienate consumers and studios.
- The Kindle will still exist, but won't be seen as a success.
Post your predictions in the comments.
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Posted 02 Jan 2008 at 5:43pm #
Regarding #1, what counts as new hardware? Would a really new case design for a Mac count (Mac Pro or MBP being the best candidates) or does it have to be really new, like the Mac mini or iPhone? The air is thick with rumors of an ultraportable at Macworld in 2 weeks; if true that would shoot down your prediction but I'm not getting all anticipatory about it. There have been plenty of just as reliable rumors in the past that never saw the light of day.
I think the rest of your predictions are very likely. #4 is the one I want the most since I own no AAPL stock 🙂
Posted 02 Jan 2008 at 5:56pm #
[quote comment="45185"]Regarding #1, what counts as new hardware? Would a really new case design for a Mac count (Mac Pro or MBP being the best candidates) or does it have to be really new, like the Mac mini or iPhone?[/quote]
New hardware usually has a new name. Though I wouldn't consider the "iPod Classic" new hardware, the iPod Touch might qualify, and the iPhone certainly did. However, the "Mac Pro" did not count. Regarding the possibility of a "MacBook Mini," I revised my prediction to exclude that specifically, since there seems to be reasonable intel to suggest it may be a valid rumor and since I personally wouldn't consider it "new" hardware unless it had a really new name and varied significantly from existing laptops.
Obviously there will be revisions to current products. This prediction excludes those, like a new MacBook Pro (please at Macworld Expo!), a new 3G iPhone, etc.
Posted 14 Jan 2008 at 11:47am #
As of late last week (CES 2008), I think I've got #8 wrong. 🙂