2009 Prediction review

This time last year I made some predictions, here is how they seem to have turned out:

1. Office 2010 beta was released, correct
2. Office 2010 did not RTM, correct
3. No, I think OOo is running about 2 million a month, any one know if something changed – the figures seem down from 2008. FAIL
4. Correctamundo – no Apple Netbook
5. Yeah 2007 is slowly gaining traction I reckon, do you?
6. Yep starting to hear bits and bobs about ES in the wild
7. Hmmm. not sure what happened here, Linux netbooks are suddenly as rare as rocking horse poop. FAIL
8. No 2007 UI improvements from MS, but plenty from 3rd parties (incl Codematic), correct
9. OOo netbook default? nah, don’t think so, FAIL
10. end of cloud BS? Mega FAIL.
11. Challenge getting funds, yeah I think that has been harder
12. Compliance consolidation? no, not that I have seen, although rumour has it some have taken to suing their clients(?) or advisers(?), FAIL
13. YES! back in March MS went sub 15, seem to be recovering well at 30 now
14. .net IS still largely irrelevant, 2010 though…
15. Sooo True, but hardly hard to predict
16. Kinda, if the EU would let them get on with it

So in summary, I think they were fairly clear predictions and easy to see if they came true of not (unlike some I’ve read about). Overall there are 4 or 5 I got well wrong, but most of the others were right, very right, or near enough.

I might peer into the crystal ball once again for 2010 next week, or I may just take the whole holidays off away from computing and away from Excel.

2009 in general has been a bizarre year in the wider world, and pretty dull in spreadsheets I reckon. Next year we have the 2010 release to look forward to but with Microsoft’s complete absence of Office marketing commitment I guess it will be the same old dreary ‘best release ever’ ‘faster selling ever’ claptrap rather than anything that will make actual users sit up and take note.

Of course, maybe nothing would make Office users sit up and take note?

I’ve seen a few articles with ‘end of the decade’ round up type stuff, but I don’t think I will do one. 10 years is a long time in IT, too long for a little post, and too long ago to be over exciting.

Cheers

Simon