2009: The year in preview

December 14, 2008, 3:52pm PST | Length: 00:02:06

ZDNet Editor in Chief Larry Dignan predicts five tech stories he believes will happen in the coming year. Topics include the fate of Yahoo, enterprise software as a mass disrupter, and whether or not the Netbook will get a do-over.

Transcript

2009: The year in preview

>> Welcome to 2009. And chances are we'll close the year with more than a few surprises. Nevertheless, we amateur seuthsayers, that's me, give it a go every year. Without further ado, here are the top five items I think 2009 will bring us. Number five, Enterprise technology customers will revolt. Combine a terrible economy with software business models that are built on milking existing customers, and what do you get? Some serious pushback. Rest assured the customers will increasingly push back on their vendors to get better deals. And that leads us to number four. Enterprise 2.0 was mass disruptor. You can spend a million bucks and basically try out every new fangled webware offering. Some of these experiments will fail miserably, but all you need is a few hits. The race to replace your obese apps is on. Number three, Microsoft will generate some legitimate enthusiasm for an operating system release. Let's face it, Vista was a bust, and a lot of IT managers are rolling the dice and waiting for Windows seven. When Windows seven launches sometime in late 2009, there will be a pent up upgrade cycle waiting for it, unless Microsoft screws it up. Number two, Yahoo, or whatever remains of it will be acquired. Yahoo isn't a search company, it isn't a tech company, it's a media company that aggregates eyeballs better than anybody. Yahoo also knows content, and it knows how to dominate categories like finance and sports. And it has a web presence that other companies can only dream of. That said, Yahoo, new management or not, may not have a future as an independent company. My hunch, Yahoo becomes part of Disney, which could do a lot with Yahoo. And number one, the Netbook gets a do over. I've been playing with the Netbook for a few months now, and there are simply too many compromises. However, there is a need for a device that resides between your laptop and smart phone. The big question is what this pup's gonna look like. AMD is focusing on ultra portable laptops, Intel acknowledges that Netbooks aren't perfect. Ideally I'd like some Origami type thing that would unfold into a laptop. Perhaps Apple rides in to save the day with a Mac tablet. And that's it for the year in preview, thanks for watching.