Well the tech year stars of with the trade show CES where all the new products that will be tempting us to part with our cash over the coming year.
This year, like last year is the year of the tablet. Last year was all about the iPad which went on to sell well.
But it looks like Apple have not learnt their lesson from the PC wars, or are stubbornly sticking to their current plan. With the desktop market they were a leader, innovator and only sold high end hardware. This did them well in a fragmented market but when all the competition choose Windows they struggled and almost bankrupted the company.
In both the phone and tablet market it looks like they are following the same pattern. They are defining the phone and tablet space with Android learning from their innovations. Though with their restrictions, high prices and ever increasing problems with the new devices along with the fact most of their competitors are switching to Android, could Apple once again run out of steam?
The chances are high, like Microsoft their partner in crime in the desktop wars, both companies make most of their money from a continuous upgrade cycle. Give your customer a product that will do everything they want for the next 10 years and you will be out of business.
Apple knows this only to well. That's why they always have the 'it would be perfect if it had...' factor. Always save something back for the next version. This is an ever decreasing success though, the more you add to sell the next version the harder it gets to find the next big thing to get people to upgrade.
Microsoft classically had this problem with Windows XP. Yes it was a pig when it came out but after a few service packs it became good enough for most people. There were many flaws they could fix in the new versions but people had found work arounds or got used to its flaws. The only thing that kept Windows as No1 was the hardware upgrade cycle along with almost all new computers coming with the latest version of Windows. This ensured Microsoft revenue from every new computer sold with Windows on it.
This decade seems to be the beginning of the stabilization of the computer hardware market. With the current trends of multi core processors, solid state hard drives, low power consumption and falling prices its hard to imagine that these two companies (Apple and Microsoft) can keep finding new hooks to make the faithful buy each and every new version.
By the end of this decade we could well have affordable, durable and powerful computers with all the software you could need that would be just as good at fulfilling our needs as the computers made a hundred years later.
It looks like Android devices could massively out sell Apples devices this year which could lead to Apple once again be heading for that 5%-10% of the market selling to the high end of the market, while 90%+ of people are using Android devices. It also seems likely that these new phones and tablets, along with the fact that as these 'mobile' devices will get more powerful, they could start replacing the need for 'desktop' computers for a large number of people. It seems likely that desktop sales will fall off and you will be able to do a lot from your little touch screen interface using cloud computing to process heavy duty tasks that can't be done efficiently on the hardware in your hand. Need that bigger screen? This will be either handled with a dock that can transform your mobile touch device into a hub where you can connect keyboard, mouse and peripherals like storage and big screens. Maybe with an extra processing boost. Alternatively a wireless link to your tv or other screen could allow you to display your devices screen in glorious high quality for those more precise tasks or for the advantages of the bigger screen. These things are not science fiction, they are the latest developments on show this year.
At the top of this game seems to be Google. They are the people behind Android, which is an operating system currently mainly used on mobile phones. But is now coming out on 7-10in tablets and its only a short hop from there to replacing the desktop which is just a larger screen, keyboard, mouse and more power. But this is not Googles only tool. They also have the Chrome browser, your gateway to the internet and the default Android browser. Also they have the online services like gmail, Google docs and are heavily promoting online replacements for software you run on the desktop.
Android and Google have become the No 1 threat to both Apple and Microsoft. Probably a bigger threat to MS as Android could totally replace Windows as the dominant OS with MS becoming like Oracle/ Sun and IBM mainly selling to big business. While Apple could once again remain the biggest alternative choice and keep selling to the dedicated fans.
The loss of desktop sales will hurt both companies though, as it is a large chuck of their revenues. Apple mainly made iPods, iPhones and iPads to sell more desktop computers. So far it has worked. But for how much longer?
There was a great description of Microsoft after it's disappointing showcase of what it has for this year. It went something like this...
Microsoft is a company where Windows and their MS Office software make up 114% of their income and all their other departments like xbox and online services loose them money.
If the demand for Windows PC's running MS Office software falls they don't have a working plan B.
Apple on the other hand have iTunes the app store and hardware sales to spread their income stream.
So the year of the tablet could also be the year of Android and possibly the beginning of the end of windows as they have failed to get an OS working on these new devices.
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