Appatic

I wanted to do a very broad range predictions list for 2010. This is a year with lots of potential ups and downs and i want be able to look back to see where i had my mind pointing to when it get to look back at it in December.

2010 Tech Predictions:

1.-Adobe will be pushing their Open Screen Project very hard, but it will be a very time consuming endeavor that will consume most of the year. The reason being brands and builders demanding personalized satisfaction.

2.-Adobe should be seen having to seriously upgrade their security as they become Hackers and Crackers new preferred target. Some will blame and mock Adobe because of their lack of 64 bit versions and their slow reaction to ensure security patches.

3.-Adobe should be able to stop its decline from 2009 but the stiff competition from Microsoft is going to end in a year with very small gains.

4.-Palm will be the subject of offers from more than one venture. The most likely and most appropriate suitor should be Blackberry as it would be the one that can better absorb and integrate it. Nokia will weight in out of principle and to make Blackberry or whoever acquisition as expensive as it can. Without blowing its cover since Nokia pride is too big to admit defeat with Symbian and Maemo. However Palm don’t wants to be acquired and will resist as much as it can.

5.-Palm should be able to see a uptake year. Thanks in the most part to Palm taking out ideas from Palm Hackers as Apple did with the iPhone 1 Hackers.

6.-Palm will be getting full head on in the bet for WebGL and OpenGL among other unfinished standards as a cry for web nerds empathy and to save the face of the pretty but weak WebOS.

7.-Blackberry will try to acquire Palm. in the case of failing will have a look to Asia as a way to branch out.

8.-LinkedIn will see a lot of more success as it updates it interface, releases apps for the big 5 smartphone ecosystems and does some acquisitions. Will try to go for Yammer, a flailing Plaxo and will also try to get into the GEOlocation game with a business angle. What will acquire i don’t know. but it will acquire more than one thing.

9.-Oracle will ultimately be able to finalize its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. In the case of finding obstacles it will force arm the EC into compliance thanks to the USA government intervening and Oracle pumping money to European politicians and sending public messages to European Consumers who are not actually pleased at all with the EC. In the end Oracle will own Sun Microsystems.

10.- JavaFX will get new releases, will be seeing the light in Mobiles too. The platform will prove to be good and powerful as it has already been proven. It will be hyped a bit in the Tech Spheres. But will end up as a distant 3rd place to the arms race of Adobe vs Microsoft.

11.-IBM will branch out in a Competition-Cooperation race with others as it sees big strong enemies popping in VMWare, Oracle, Microsoft and even Adobe and Google. Should be choosing doing business with Amazon, the new powerful Comcast, Cisco and Salesforce. IBM is here to stay and will just adapt to the new times. But will be still doing business with frenemies like the Microsoft Enterprise branch and the Sun branch of Oracle.

12.-Cisco will continue to acquire at least 3 companies more as it extends its power of being the infrastructure backbone of technology. Will find a favorite frenemy in the new Comcast. Both and other media and telecom companies will be very interested in keeping Google at bay to who they see as a threat. Will gladly do deals with the likes of IBM and Oracle in shared interests.

13.-There will be a lot of consolidation and acquisitions in/from the OpenSource World.

14.-There will be rumors of a Red Hat – VMWare merger than in the end will probably don’t happen. It will still make nervous all the other Big OpenSource companies. If it were to happen possible mergers could include Debian – Canonical. If so, Novell would simply choose to acquire some small nascent companies.

15.-Red Hat will be the target of rumor acquisitions. Most likely suitor being IBM and most unlikely being Cisco.

16.-Some will try to acquire VMWare who don’t wants to be acquired.

17.-VMWare will become the defacto winner in virtualization solutions for everything. will release Mobile virtualizations. Will get interested in Virtualized Environments, Remote access to them via browsers and App Streaming. All 3 last areas being things Microsoft is also interested, researching and developing on. Microsoft will become VMWare pretty much only competition in most areas.

18.-The New Comcast will put everyone nervous, will find lots of opposition but in the end will still exist unless something really surprising and unexpected happens.

19.-Disney will launch a new channel geared for Boys and Teens to compete with Nickelodeon Networks. Based in Content from Marvel and new series. Writers working at Marvel right now will end up commissioning lots of proposals for new content that will get nowhere most of the times but end up as comics.

20.-Marvel will be getting new lines for kids, teens and commercial tie-ins now that Disney is the new owner.

30.-Big Social Networks will concentrate in differentiating themselves from Facebook in what years ago would have been considered niche verticals.

31.-Facebook will integrate Friendfeed features into the status updates stream.

32.-Facebook will separate in 2 Flavors: Standard and Lite post to the new interface update.

33.-Facebook Connect will continue to advance, as it gets to be used in new improved ID Badge Widgets from Facebook trying to persuade users to use it as their new online ID card.

34.-Facebook Payments will launch but will concentrate in-facebook transactions for 2010.

35.-Facebook Payments will be used in a new business opportunity that will come out of business facebook based pages, listings and mini stores. it will also be used as a way to test geolocation that will riff on Foursquare, Twitter and Blippr.

36.-Facebook Payments will end up being the new beacon as it will have a opt-in blippr style option that will raise security, privacy and oversharing concerns.

37.-Facebook Listings  (or whatever) will be Facebook based pages for brands and business that will offer deals that can be purchased within Facebook itself.

38.-Facebook Video will become one the top 5 video sites of the world. will branch out a video portal of its own.

39.-Facebook Widgets will be the way of Facebook stretching to the web as they will be embeddable everywhere and they are Facebook Connect enabled.

40.-Facebook Revenue for 2009 will be reported as over 600million.

41.-Facebook profit for 2009 will be around 50-100 million. but it is still well over a billion in the deep because of investments and the fact it didn’t made any profit previously. But Facebook will gloat on been a profitable and advance thinking company. Will boost in new hype most of Silicon Valley will just follow.

42.-Facebook Revenue for 2010 will be over 1 billion dollars.

43.-Facebook Profit for 2010 will be over 300 million dollars. will then only be less than half a billion in the deep. Facebook will gloat even more as if it was not.

44.-Facebook growth in 2010 will slow down but should reach the final plateau of around 500 million by the end of 2010. People will start questioning the stats and wondering what is the real % of active users and what should be considered a active user.

45.-Friendfeed will be closed down or open sourced a la Jaiku. If so, it will still mean that it is dead. Just Zombie dead.

46.-Plurk will either find a monetization road or start facing the question of closing down.

47.-Plurk will continue to grow a lot mostly in Asia.

48.-Plurk, thanks to its API will find more adepts in North America as it starts gaining apps. But these will roll as slow as paint drying. That is unless Plurk starts acting proactively which is unlikely.

49.-Plurk will still remain offended by Microsoft even if it was MSN China. will try to force Microsoft in helping them out to get unblocked in China. Got no clue of what could happen.

50.-Plurk will still be the unsung #2 of Social Messaging. Even if most of the Tech Community in North America will ignore them.

51.-Twitter will go all for GEO thanks to its recent acquisition of GEOapi.

52.-Twitter will open the firehose Api and oAuth for everyone but will present new Paid options for API usage.

53.-Twitter business play will be paid API options.

54.-Twitter will do partnerships with other companies as a way to keep Facebook at bay.

55.-Twitter will do acquisitions but will not be able to buy Bit.ly as it has become too expensive for them. Will instead buy Tweetmeme, a photo twitter solution, a file twitter solution, a video twitter.

56.-Twitter should have at least 100 million of revenue in 2010. but will end up having a poor profit range (as low as 10%) because of acquisitions, development and costs. But they are a good call to keep Facebook and others at bay.

57.-Jack Dorsey’s Square will end up not leading because of fierce competition. Square still should do good and remain a contender. It is possible that rumors of acquisition in late 2010 get to start circulating.

58.-Digg will find success in their advertising approach. Will still want to sell but will deny it. Will follow trends from others. Will remain afloat and doing good.

59.-Revision3 will remain a snail going up a hill. But hey, it is going uphill.

60.-Kevin Rose will try to sell ice to penguins with its twitter directory. The penguin will not bite.

61.-Tumblr will continue to beat Posterous and Soup.io. But Posterous will follow closely enough to keep Tumblr on edge.

62.-The Cloud Wars will be the most entertaining thing for true geeks. Pretty much everyone and their mother will be in it.

63.-Google will find itself with several antitrust problems during the year. will pledge they would never do anything bad. People will start not buying it as more proof of Google way of  “not being evil, just innovative” starts coming up.

64.-Google will indeed launch a Google Phone. it will be more hype than anything else.  Carriers and builders dealing with Google will not be happy.

65.-Google will gain lots of new enemies as it starts pushing Google Voice via VOIP. Will not see the cost of its arrogance. But many companies will start gunning for it politically.

66.-Google wave 2 will be Etherpad googlefied. It will find moderate success that some people will take as the best thing since sliced bread.The majority will remain not amused.

67.-Google Chrome OS will launch and will be disappointing as every single first year Google product. Hype will still follow and will generate a plethora of ridiculous  headlines involving windows in many blog posts.

68.-Google Chrome 5 will be reached and Chrome will finally be a full browser. Internet Explorer and Firefox will get nervous but will counterattack fiercely.

69.-Google Chrome will reach 10% in 2010 cementing its third place for the foreseeable future.

70.-Google will finally do some decent updates to Blogger. yeah, this is more hope than a prediction.

71.-Google will realize that they cannot compete with Office 2010 (Shocking, i know), will try to buy Zoho. Zoho chances of selling are 50/50 based on if Google will be willing to pay well over 1 billion for it.

72.-Google will end up fighting Zoho, Adobe Acrobat, Apple, Oracle and even Thinkfree as the fight for Office in the browser and the cloud gets serious. Only way for Google to stay as #2 is to buy either Zoho or Thinkfree. Adobe want that #2 very very very badly. Also because of the threat of Oracle and Apple getting seriously interested for it. If Oracle get interested in this, they may also want to acquire Thinkfree to ramp up Open Office into a contender. Apple will instead simply build up into iWork.

73.-Google will start getting unfocused and will make lots of mistakes as it figures out that being at the top is bloody hard if people start gunning for you.

74.-Google will lose some marketshare in search and advertising for the first time ever.

75.-Zoho will continue to succeed thanks to their strategy of supporting everything Microsoft and everything Google. The new advances of Adobe, Apple and the prospect of having to compete with Oracle will still make a  dent . And those would be the only reasons they would be willing to sell to Google (or anyone). But only if Google (or anyone) is willing to pay a fair price.

76.-Adobe Acrobat will finally get serious as it unveils their version of Powerpoint and update all of their applications. would still need to acquire Sliderocket and Scribd if they really want to do well in the future. But that is impossible to know.

77.-Open Office will start questioning itself in this new war. Best way for it to thrive would be if new daddy Oracle would buy ThinkFree so they came to play for the OOteam.

78.Apple will get serious with a new release of iWork, iWork.com. Start a new marketing chant of Macs being also good for Office. Windows+Office in Bootcamp or Office for Mac will still be the preferred choices much to the chagrin of Apple. But that don’t means they cannot do a good fight for #2, so they will.

79.-Apple hardware failures will start to ramp up and will become the headache of Apple in 2010.

80.-Apple Mac OS X getting more and more attacked by hackers will be a concern to Apple. Many of these new attacks will be sponsored by Security Companies as they see that the business in the Windows side is drying up because of MSE, Windows 7 64bits and a glut of Free Security Software. Also because they know Mac users will gladly pay for anything.

81.-Apple will launch their Tablet and it will be good i must admit. But will not be alone as new convertible pc’s, tablets and readers from EVERYONE start to come up before and after. It will not be the success that Apple expects it to be at all. Possible hardware and software failure could also be a factor as in every gen 1 device. Should still do OK.

82.-Apple growth will slowdown. Stock will fall or flat out.

83.-JooJoo will be unable to fight Techcrunch fury. The thing that did it will end up being that spiteful remark of “Techcrunch is only a blog”. :P

84.-Meizu will continue to enjoy success in Asia. Engadget will continue to mock regardless of that. Gizmodo may start cheering to go the opposite way.

85.-Sony PS3-PSP-PSN strategy will continue to disappoint Sony and most of Video Gamers. Will end up with #2 of Generation and #3 in general. No, Wii is not part of this generation no matter how much Nintendo Fanboys say it. Should be only counted in general.

86.-Nintendo growth will flat out in 2010. Wii sales will decline.

87.-ReadWriteWeb will continue to be the most even out Tech blog even if some crazy Marshall Kirkpatrick posts get to be and Jolie O’Dell continues trying to be too funny. Ok, i am kidding on the last part………or am i?. RWW will continue to copy GigaOM strategy. It will work.

88.-Mashable will become Adshable, CNNshable and Pollshable. Visitors will take note and comment. Pete Cashmore will ponder on it. Outcome unknown.

89.-Techcrunch will continue to lead thanks to the insane post output, MG Siegler and Paul Carr fueled hate being always in the rise ( if people would only realize that THAT is the game) and it being so branched out. Ironic since Big Mikey tirade on content farms right?

90.-The Next Web will become the new BlogNation but without the fraud. They will grow a lot and will put RWW and GigaOM on edge.

91.-The war for Mobile Browsers will break with new releases of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini vs Netfront, Firefox Mobile 1.0, Skyfire, IE Mobile 7 and even a possible Maxthon Mobile.

92.-Opera will lose the war for the desktop as it falls from the TOP 5. will concentrate on Mobile and Devices. It will prove to be the right call as Opera Mini and Opera Mobile will be under attack from Netfront (vs Opera Mini), Firefox Mobile 1.0 ( vs Opera Mobile) and Skyfire (vs Opera Mobile). Devices (TV’s, Consoles, etc) will be the only place where they will continue to reign supreme for the time being.

93.-Nokia will continue to be stubborn and will stick to Symbian and Maemo. will fall to 49% of Dominance. Even if still being incredibly big and being more than just a Mobile maker, Bloggers in the USA that have no clue about this will call for its death.

94.-Nokia will win over Apple in the patent war. May only get 1 billion out of it. Bragging rights still worth it.

95.-Nokia Maemo devices will do well, but will not advance as fast as the competition.

96.-SonyEricsson  will continue to flounder with weird smartphones and mediaphones.

97.-Mozilla will release 3.6 in january, 3.7 in may-jun and 4.0 in november-december. 4.0 will be awesome. Chrome and the Google ties will still hurt Mozilla morale big time.They seriously need to cut ties with Google. funny that AOL and Ask may end up being their saving grace.

98.-Mozilla Firefox Mobile 1.0 will launch in the top 5 smartphone ecosystems and will prove to be the right call for Mozilla.

99.-Maxthon will beat opera for the 5th place in the desktop thanks to its introduction in the E.C Browser Choice Ballot, their Russian-Asia deals and their China Browser Research Lab.

100.-I will still be getting lots of “Oh, Avatar?, that movie rocks, You are fan of James Cameron?”. These will be summed up to “Oh, Avatar: The Last Airbender?. Love the series, Movie is nice too. You are a fan of it?”. This even if i have the name since 1996. But having passed the hype of Second Life and Xbox Live references, I will be fine. Ok-Ok, not much of a prediction but i had to wrap this list up.

Some Notes

I have added some humor to the predictions. Hope they don’t offend anyone. These are my own speculations and opinion.

Will also take suggestions if i should break this post into several pieces. I know that a 3000+ words post is quite daunting. I promise to never do posts over 3000 words again.

I will be doing updates via comments to this post all year round until i get to look back to it in late December. If you disagree or got your own 2010 tech predictions please comment on this post. If you like it, please subscribe to the feed or twitter.

If you are wondering why there is no Microsoft 2010 predictions, that is because those got their own post:

10 Microsoft Predictions For 2010

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*Edit 1* (04-01-2010 at 1am) Made it more readable

*Edit 2* (04-01-2010 at 1:30am) Correcting Typos.