Year of The VM

Wow, come February, this site will have been up and running for 2 years! It’s interesting to read some of the earlier posts, but one in particular stuck out for review since we’re coming up on the end of 2007. At the end of 2006, I made some predictions as to the likely trends in computing for 2007. So, without further ado, here’s a review:

Virtualization: This one will be even hotter than last year. The big players all appear to be getting ready to wage some serious corporate warfare over the market, since it’s still a mostly untapped one.

Windows: Vista will be released to a non-plussed general public. I doubt we’ll see the kind of high adoption rates that were seen in previous releases, except with new systems being sold by the big manufacturers, and corporations who get a nice discount on their licenses.

Linux: There will continue to be growth in this area as people figure out new and exciting ways to make a living on Linux and related Open Source projects

Hardware: With SanDisk’s recent announcement of their flash-based hard drive for laptops, I think we’ll see this start to roll out in the higher-end systems. Probably won’t pick up too much, as large flash drives are still a bit expensive for most people.

Security: Spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam. Probably no major shifts in the current trends.

Not bad if I do say so myself, but I missed a couple of things:

Most businesses seem avoiding upgrading to Vista, in part due to the rather steep hardware recommendations

The trend of home power-users buying systems pre-loaded with Vista and then “downgrading” to XP

The latest cheap Linux desktop, as well as Dell’s Linux desktops

With that out of the way, I shall now make my predictions for 2008:

Windows: Vista SP 1 will do little to improve things for Microsoft. The business market will probably continue to avoid upgrading by-and-large, though I suspect that home users who don’t want to bother “downgrading” their shiny new laptops to XP, which will help continue Microsoft’s reign over the desktop O/S.

Linux: Despite the recent cheap desktops from Wal-Mart, and Dell’s recent forays into Linux on their desktops, I don’t suspect we’ll see a lot of growth on the Linux desktop front. That is, until my next prediction starts rolling…

Virtualization: As expected, 2007 has been a big year for Virtualization, but 2008 is going to be even bigger. We’re going to see some serious solutions that go beyond consolidating the datacentre, and I think one of the big things will be virtual desktops. Citrix has been doing something like this for a while, but with other players getting into the game, the world of virtualization is going to get even more interesting.

Hardware: Laptops with flash-based hard drives will drop in price, bringing them to the middle price range. They’ll be more common in compact laptops, since the larger ones can still sustain standard hard drives, and people still expect larger storage volumes on laptops with all the special features. Speaking of laptops, the price drops will most likely continue, which will prompt people who are ready to replace their desktops to very seriously consider laptops.

Security: The big one to watch is the mobile field. Viruses for mobile devices aren’t new by any stretch, but with the growth RIM has seen in the non-business user market for their Blackberry devices, it’s really only a matter of time before these devices become too ubiquitous to ignore. Let’s hope that RIM, Palm, and Microsoft have anticipated this trend and built-in some safeguards (though there’s no substitute for user education).

Hope everyone had a great holiday, and that everyone’s new year is happy, healthy and prosperous.