Forecasts for 2006

Good you made it through to the new year like I did. Like everyone else, this is the time to look out to the horizon and predict what may happen in the next 12-months. Notice I did not say crystal ball because that creates an imagery of mysticism for which the technology field is not. At least not in my viewpoint.

In 2005, AJAX was not even on the radar and it became the hottest topic of the year for web development. So what is on the radar this year? I'd put my bets on dynamic web development (i.e. Ruby on Rails, PHP Framework, and probably something like Trails for Java). Web platforms like Amazon.com, Saleforce.com and others will emerge and become dominant. Google and Yahoo are not sitting still opening their services and APIs for building applications on their platforms. Microsoft with it's aging .NET and emerging Windows Live initiatives will follow this wind.

The dynamic OO languages will continue to make strides and gain mind share. Especially Ruby on Rails and frameworks that are like this.

Java will continue to get more complex with its frameworks and technologies. Hopefully, Ruby has an influence on the course Java is charting and steer it towards simplicity and ease of use. This is definitely where Java is not today. The maturing of an open source Java VM and component based framework like Apache MyFaces could make this happen. For enterprise development, Java will continue to remain significant.

The web platforms (Amazon, EBay, Google, SalesForce, Yahoo) will make the operating system irrelevant. This may be the year that Windows looses its monopolistic grip. The desktop is becoming less relevant. At least I like to dream well. The Mac using Intel processors will have a huge impact if Apple does it right.

The web platforms use web services, APIs and widgets to provide you with all the tools you need to build applications. What about all the hype surrounding web services? Web services are the interim building parts for the web platforms. They will continue to exist and will evolve into building blocks for the web platforms.

In the browser space, Firefox will continue to inch away market share from IE. It is already used in high as 25% of computers in Europe and approximately 10% in USA. This is unconfirmed since the metrics on this is not easily gathered. I suspect that it will do the same in the rest of the world. In Europe, the penetration may even go as high as 35% by the end of 2006. Overall I wil predict a 20% market share for Firefox by December 2006.

Virtualization will continue its ascent. VMWare and Xen will be emerge as leaders in this field. This is where 64-bit and 128-bit computing make sense. It's time to get 64-bit processors. AMD is releasing this stuff and is relatively inexpensive. The next machine I purchase will be 64-bit.

Security issues will continue to plague the IT industry. 2005 was the worst on record. 2006 is going to be a lot worse. Zero day exploits and the continuing evolution of organized cyber crime makes this a profitable business for the 'dark side'.

Google will do some amazing things in the next year. Most of it will be unexpected yet sweeping as they have done in 2005. It is only 1/3/2006 and there are already rumors about a low-end non-Windows Google PC to be sold at Wal-Mart. What else is next? Maybe an AOL/Google web platform. Google remains secretive and only it knows where it is going.

Blu-Ray and the Sony PS3 will land this year. This is going to be the start of the mass migration to high-definition everything not just HDTV.

That's my first shot at forecasting the next year. This is a dynamic industry and I am sure there will a lot of unexpected events and technologies that are waiting to be unleashed on the world. Happy New Year!