5 predictions for 2009
Now that 2009 is only hours away, I thought it was time to unveil this year's 2009 predictions. There's no telling if what I think will happen will come true or not, but I thought I'd fill you in on five of my predictions for the New Year.
Please share your own 2009 predictions in the comments with the rest of us, so we can look back a year from now and see who did the best job.
1. PS3 pricing is reduced by $100
I don't think there's any doubt that PlayStation 3 pricing will be reduced by $100 in the next year. As the costs of building the console continue to fall and Sony's competitors continue to enjoy strong sales thanks to a lower price, the pressure Sony will feel will be too much and it'll be forced to bring the price of its PS3 down to $299 to compete more effectively against the Xbox 360 and the Wii.
Will it work? You bet.
2. Apple ends iPhone exclusivity deal with AT&T
This one isn't too much of a stretch and I'm sure many of you would agree that it's only a matter of time before Apple finally announces that the iPhone will be made available to more carriers.
AT&T exclusivity simply doesn't work for Apple anymore, since it's now one of the leaders in the cell phone space and it's doing itself a disservice by not opening its popular mobile phone up to the millions of people who have decided against AT&T as their mobile carrier.
Exclusivity was great for two years, but now that Apple has proven it has its sights set on RIM, it can't beat the BlackBerry maker unless it makes its iPhone available to any U.S. carrier.
3. Blu-ray gains little ground on DVDs as streaming takes off
Sorry, but Blu-ray won't gain very much ground in 2009. So far, its adoption rates are still quite low--around 10 percent to 15 percent each week based on Nielsen VideoScan figures--and both the players and the movies will still cost too much for people to move to Blu-ray in any meaningful way.
Meantime, 2008's breakout success--Hulu-- will help lead the charge in online streaming and act as the benchmark all other professional media outlets will try to surpass. While that's happening, more capable set-top boxes will hit store shelves and more people will find reasons to stream movies into their living rooms instead of popping a disc into their Blu-ray or DVD players.
4. Windows 7 hits store shelves
Vista has been a PR nightmare for Microsoft, vendors are still upset with the product, and businesses are loath to deploy the OS for fear of incompatibility, security, and stability issues.
Realizing that, Microsoft will ramp up the rhetoric in 2009 and start talking more and more about Windows 7. And at what it believes is the perfect time--March or April, if you ask me--it will announce that Windows 7 will be launching in 2009.
I'm still betting its launch date will be November 2.
5. Steve Jobs announces his retirement date
I know Apple zealots and shareholders won't like to see this one happen, but Steve Jobs will announce his retirement date in 2009. I don't think he'll retire in 2009--that would be a disastrous move from a share price perspective as shareholders are looking for a strong leader in uncertain times--but he will announce that he's had enough and will call it quits by the end of 2010. At the same time, he'll announce his successor and throughout 2009, he'll let that person take more of the limelight to quell some shareholder unrest over his departure.
So there you have it: my predictions for 2009. Will they come true? Who knows? But one thing is certain: 2009 will be an exciting year for tech and I hope you keep coming back to The Digital Home in the next year to continue our discussions about some of the most important topics in this industry.
Happy New Year.
Check out Don's Digital Home podcast, Twitter feed, and FriendFeed.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
2) iPhone and AT&T: I believe there is a large segment out there that would jump ship if this happened. I dare say there would be a lot of existing G3 iPhone users who would sell, give away, or just turn off their existing phone if they can get a similar unit at another carrier if only to be away from AT&T's legendary 'service'. I know that I would seriously look at the phone myself at that point.
3) Blu-Ray: Too little, too late. DVD quality is good enough for the price that it has. Charging $20-$30 for a movie in Blu-Ray when it's available for $10 in DVD is ridiculous. Sure, it may be in HD, but do you really need to see Eddie Murphy or Wil Farrel in HD detail? Do you really WANT to? I think I'll stick to DVD and online streaming, thank you very much.
4) Win 7: Microsoft is really steamrolling Win7 through internally and I fully believe it will be ready for shipment in 2009. Even if it isn't that much different from Vista, the fact that it has a different name will make people want to buy it instead of Vista. The Edsel was a good reliable car with no mechanical problems- it was all a marketing failure. Move on from Vista and go to Win7 and people will buy it.
5) Steve Jobs: I don't think he'll retire in 2009 or 2010. He's got too big of an ego to allow someone else to run the show. He may step back from being in the public eye as much, and may follow Bill Gate's path to gracefully exit the company while making sure it has a future. it's going to be very tricky though as he has sold so much of the experience through his own personality and antics. It is still up in the air if anyone can carry that off as well. I expect the stocks to tumble for a bit, then stabilize. I would not be surprised to see a 30% drop realistically. The real question will be how they release new products after Jobs leaves and how they carry off the promotion start to finish. If they hiccup or blow it on any product promotion, then they stand a very real chance of losing their loyal fan base. They MUST not forget the fans that built the company. Keep ignoring them or treat them poorly (like abandoning MacWorld for example) and they may not be able to recover that same fan base. Time will tell.
Furthermore, if you would do even the slightest amount of research you would realize that Blu-ray discs don't all cost >$20. I was at Fry's recently and they now have an entire section of budget Blu-ray titles that are <$15. Heck, some were as little as $7! Why would I buy the DVD for $5 when I can get the Blu-ray version for $7? I have literally seen that a local retail stores. Especially if you have a 1080p TV I would wonder why you even wasted your money since you other from Blu-ray there is virtually no content that will take advantage of your TV anyway.
While online streaming is the future for sure the future where it becomes our primary source of movies is NOT next year. I have a Netflix queue ~500 long and less than 10% of the discs in my queue are available for online streaming. I've looked at Vudu and iTunes and the selection for online streaming isn't much better. The selection through torrent sites is pretty good, but depending upon the number of seeders it can take hours to DAYS to download anything. When 50-100Mbit connections are the norm I could see DVD largely fading and to a lesser degree Blu-ray, but that day isn't coming anytime soon.
As for Windows 7 I am rather skeptical that Microsoft will ship before 2010. They want to ship before Christmas next year, but proposed Microsoft shipping dates right in early betas almost always end up being optimistic. While I don't think Microsoft will miss their announced shipping date to the degree they did with Vista, I do think we won't see Windows 7 until Q1 2010.
As for Windows 7 I see Microsoft wanting to get their next product out in the market ASAP. Vista was a disaster and with them having to continually extend the deadline on XP to appease large business they will want to prove their next product isn't such a fiasco.
You completely ignore the issue that streaming ALSO requires a *LOT* of infrastructure that simply doesn't exist and those responsible for expanding that infrastructure are taking their merry time. No matter if I live in SF or some rural town in Iowa I could get set up with an HDTV and Blu-ray, but calling my local cable company and demanding that they lay fiber optics to my house isn't going to get it there any sooner. They will likely do that on their own time table whatever that maybe. There are a millions of Americans who can't even stream SD and you think that people who have Blu-ray players are going to stop buying Blu-ray discs next year? I asked the this question about how HD streaming can replace Blu-ray for millions of people who don't have the bandwidth and aren't likely to have it next year either and you don't have a response. Either you are some shill for a streaming company or you don't really know what you are even talking about.
Whatever you are smoking it isn't tobacco because Blu-ray market share keeps growing despite the attempts of some to put a negative spin on the story. As a closing point I would point out that Wal-Mart is pushing Blu-ray and you know that when Wal-Mart is pushing something that it isn't cutting edge anymore. When the cheap Taiwanese firms start releasing Blu-ray players with MSRPs <$100 customers at CES in another week you will be looking at the possibility of going to your local retailer and seeing an upconverting DVD player for $50 or a Blu-ray/DVD player on sale for $70. When you hit that point the only the cheapest consumers will buy a DVD only player.
As for Windows 7, I don't think rushing it will help them in the enterprise space. Vista has been shunned in enterprise due to compatibility issues with expensive software. For an engineering design firm Windows 7 could be 50% faster on the same hardware and if it doesn't run their thousand dollar design software(eg. SolidWorks) they are still going to stick with XP.
As the Windows Mojave project demonstrates a lot of **home consumers** who haven't moved to Vista haven't used it and are basing their biases against it on things that are either no longer true or in some cases were never true, but corporate IT departments though aren't so stupid. While Vista is better than XP in some ways there aren't many compelling advantages because they removed a lot of the major improvements that were originally planned for Vista(new file system amongst other features that were dropped in R&D). They haven't moved to Vista either because they haven't come to the point where they planned on upgrading hardware (there is no point in replacing something if it still works fine and the new hardware isn't a huge improvement) or there is some major compatibility issue blocking them(eg. firms that use older copies of SolidWorks). Merely releasing a more polished version of Vista and calling in Windows 7 isn't likely to fool many corporate IT departments. I agree with you that a lot of people would prefer Microsoft to put more money into improvements of Vista than marketing, but rushing Windows 7 to market is little more than a marketing ploy that isn't going to improve migration away from XP. XP will remain popular until either MS convinces businesses that a newer version is a compelling upgrade or NOT upgrading because more of a hassle than upgrading. Since Windows 2000 most people upgrade merely because some new app doesn't work their current version NOT because there is anything compelling about the newer version of Windows.
My first VHS player cost me $1499 my first DVD player cost me $699 my first BlueRay player cost me $149
When VHS came out I was paying $24.99 a tape, when DVD came out I was paying $29.99 a tape, and I am paying about $20 per Blue Ray today.
The reason Windows 7 (or Vista) will get picked up is because Microsoft is essentially ending Windows XP support. Not only that, but it will be nigh impossible to get XP on a pre-built box, which most big corporations buy in bulk. I think we'll see Windows Vista or Windows 7 adopted simply out of necessity rather than desire.
You are right that most corporate IT departments aren't going to move to Vista or Windows 7 because there are compelling benefits, but because at some point it will become more of a hassle to stay with XP then it will to move on to something else, but rushing Windows 7 isn't going to rush their timetables any. Having played around with Windows 7 I don't see a lot of huge changes that are going to make it much more compelling than Vista.
Many businesses have volume licenses for a certain number of licenses of XP. Provided they don't have a need for more licenses than the number they already own they have no problem staying where they are. Considering that we are in a recession most businesses don't have big expansion plans for the near future so many businesses don't need more OS licenses than they have right now. Heck, some businesses are going to take some computers out of service as they downsize.
When MS is talking about "discontinuing" XP they are referring to ending sales NOT support. Support keeps going long after the last box leaves the factory. XP will receive some level of support from MS and the industry overall long after most resellers sold their last OEM copy of XP. As long as MS and industry support for XP remains there are few compelling reasons to move to anything else. I am not a XP fanatic, but I do realize that there are some organizations have bona fide reasons to retain XP (primarily compatibility) that Windows 7 doesn't resolve.
If by online steaming Cnet means all movies downloaded legal or otherwise sure "online streaming" will really start to eat into DVD and to a lesser degree Blu-ray sales, but if we are talking about legal services replacing DVD and Blu-ray I think CNET hasn't done their HW.
Apple can afford the fee, but they can't afford not to have their phone available through other carriers. They'll pay it and bring a CDMA version for Verizon. It's anyone's guess as to whether or not T-Mobile and/or Sprint will climb aboard.
Benigna Marko
As for the Windows 7, it will be interesting to see how successful it will be when it comes out. It definitely will be better than what Vista achieved but how much better? Will people still just consider it Vista with a prettier face?? And will businesses finally migrate to it? Should be interesting.
Why don't people get the fact the Streaming HD won't work for everyone? My ISP for example is not only not fast enough to deliver 1080p @ the proper MBps rate but also has a download cap. At he end of the month I won't be able to rent or purchase anymore. What If I want to take a movie to a friend's place to watch there? Sometimes a physical product makes sense. Most of the world, hell a good chunk of the US isn't capable of relying on streaming/internet-acquirement to make it a sole means of getting their entertainment.
You sound a lot like some college student who couldn't afford a HDTV trying to make fun of people that you secretly are jealous of.
I have to agree with the retort about HD streaming not being practical. I live in a zip code where the household income is >$100K/yr and I can't get a connection that is capable of downloading data fast enough to stream HD content. If even the highest tier of internet access in my neighborhood is too slow you can be sure that internet access in more poorer and more rural neighborhoods can't either.
I think the problem is that CNET is based in SF where bandwidth is plentiful. If they would drive out into the central valley they would find that their internet connection is far from universal.
Its what every fanboy who goes on and on about how awesome blu-ray is believes its always about them.
Its about the the bigger demographic who doesn't care or see any point to seeing Eddie Murphy in higher detail.
Fact is to go from a vcr to dvd you didn't need to upgrade your tv, buy new cables, get another player and get a new sound system to see the difference.
Also unless you do have a larger tv about 40' or more the average person will see very little difference when using an upscaler, whereas when you hit 46' and bigger the difference is greater and can be appreciated but not everyone needs a 46' tv either.
I hate to break it to you, but CNET isn't much of a geeky website. Back in '99 the average CNET user was quite a bit savvier than the normal person, but in recent years I have found that the average CNET user isn't that geeky at all. A lot of people here don't know jack squat about computers so I don't see how your statement that somehow people reading CNET are automatically geeky makes any sense. That would make sense at ArsTechnica or Slashdot, but CNET is about as mainstream as you get.
Furthermore, you are COMPLETELY ignoring the issue that there are a lot of people that can't stream SD video right now. Blu-ray *may* end up being little more than a niche for those who want high quality content, but I don't see people who want HD having any other practical option in the near future. Once Blu-ray players drop below $100 interest in DVD only player with wither till there isn't enough demand to justify a DVD only player. Unlike with VHS having a player that plays both DVDs and Blu-ray discs doesn't have to be bulky and after CES in another week the price premium will fall as the first sub $100 Blu-ray players hit the market. You have to admit that most people would buy a more versatile Blu-ray player at $70 than a upconverting DVD player at $50. VERY few people need a new technology to be equal in price to the old technology. They merely need it to cross some personal threshold below which they will seriously consider a higher end model.
I seriously can't see how streaming media can compare with Bluray though. I've watched some on demand video and it looks terrible. I've also tried downloading HD content for my 360 and while it did look good, it also took hours to download and also expired in 48 hours. Further my bandwidth is capped at 95gb a month so what will I do when I want to watch a few movies a month when each movie clocks in at over 4gb? I know the price of bandwidth is dropping but for ease I put my money on Bluray. I also think that the prices for movies will drop, eventually. One last point, not many people I know actually have a PC connected to their TVs. I can't see a lot of people crowding around a 15" laptop screen to watch something.
If you knew how to strip the DRM from your iTunes music, you could transfer it to other MP3 players. Stripping the DRM is as simple as burning the music to a CD, then rip them back to your computer... or can purchase some software (Tunebite) which will strip the DRM while the music is downloading from iTunes!
/jp/
How about Walmart starting to sell I Phones ?
What kind of "exclusivity" is that ? Remember that is all about generating market share .
No problem - the man can retire any time he wants.
I doubt that any but the most rabid zealots would mind, as long as the successor CEO and his or her team is competent.
The reason why is simple: When Jobs left the first time around (mid-'90s), he was basically thrown out, and the replacements were as incompetent as Hell (see also Mac Clones, crap marketing at the time, crap decision-making by that team, etc).
Nah - this time around, as long as the new boss is worth a damn (and is at least halfway as creative), Apple will do just fine with Jobs in retirement.
Apple is pretty much only company which "eats its own dog food". They are not making gadgets to sell - they are making stuff they'd like to buy and own themselves. This is quite a huge cultural gap between e.g. MS and Apple. MS products are compromised to fulfill many many requirements with all its partners - or rather make many many holes in products where its partner ISVs can plug their own products or services. Apple products never compromise of general usability and always strive to be good and usable out of box.
If Jobs would go, then there is a chance that Apple would turn again into ordinary producer of beige boxes.
If this were 2001, sure... but I'm willing to bet that by now, the majority of Apple owners don't own an Apple product for the culture, but own one because it simply does the job and does it well. Most have no desire to read macrumors.com or Roughly Drafted, or even know they exist. That's the beauty of mainstreaming - you can (as long as you yourself as a company stick to core principles) make and sell products without having to maintain a culture in order to do it... by then the culture would have evolved and grown without the need of a personality to run it.
Funny thing is, even Microsoft had one for awhile during the 1990's, with Bill Gates running it. That said, once a company reaches a certain size or dominance, that person is prone to doing dumb things (e.g. Gates' habit of breaking antitrust laws) which destroy that culture. The time for Jobs to ease out is now, while everything is good and he can lay down some solid foundations for internal corporate culture and succession.
"They are not making gadgets to sell - they are making stuff they'd like to buy and own themselves."
...as long as Jobs' replacement --and the corporate culture-- has that same attitude, I see no problems here.
There's always the chance that things could go sour, but I doubt it... once you build a corporate culture like that, and insure that your successors maintain it, you're good to go.
/P
I think that it has more to do with the rental rules and money. I read an article on here somewhere about how Netflix has a shortage of Blu-Ray titles because of how expensive they are and they don't generate that much extra revenue. Also, I know the studios have limits on how long a movie can be rented and just about everything else in the book.
Overall these are pretty decent predictions. The iPhone was a good one. There are millions that would jump on board if other major carriers joined in. And the person that talked about AT&T's "legendary" service hasn't used their phone in Indiana!!
>>Too many hoops to jump through to view it at it's best.
Buy a 1080p TV and a HDMI cable. Except buying the TV part, I think it sounds pretty easy. Even on a non-1080p panel the quality would still be better because you are using an uncompressed data signal, but since most 720p panels are so small that you may not be able to tell the difference I could see most people not bothering unless they had a 1080p panel.
My prediction for 2009: Journalism will turn to cow manure, and blogging and 1st-person writing will take over. More and more, the media is doing way with the editor position, and allowing writers to publish directly to the Internet - so that it can be posted on a faster pace. The Don's of the world will eventually take over. Sad.
Maybe his mom [comment edited for personal attack]
Now, that's not to say I see bluray making lots of progress soon, but it's not going to be because streaming media overtakes it. It'll be because bluray players are expensive, and because a lot of people don't yet have HDTVs. As this changes, it'll catch up to the DVD format, and eventually outpace it.
Also, as streaming services would roll out, I hope due to competition we would also start seeing plain download services popping up.
Realistically, we are going to live with mix of DVD, streaming and Bluray for some time now. But if you look at popularity of YouTube and Hulu, I'd say they are already beating Bluray on content distribution front.
"Blu-ray disc sales hit a new high in the run-up to Christmas; 1.5 million discs were sold in December alone, up almost 400% against the same period in 2007," continues the BVA press release, which is hardly surprising, seeing as a considerably higher proportion of the population have access to a PlayStation 3, a stand-alone Blu-ray player or a laptop or desktop with a Blu-ray drive than did so at this point last year.
idiots!
7- Global economy sees its deadliest days, millions of people around the world go jobless and enroll in military for the war to scape their darkest destiny.
8- First Chinese spaceship lands on the moon.
9- American people realize what "The Change" really meant.
10- Oil prices rise to 200$ as Iran and Saudi Arabia cut their global oil supply due to the war of west against Muslims.
11- The number of criminals in the world doubles as poverty and homelessness hits millions of people.
12- Americans and Russians start seeing some profits by selling guns and weapons of mass destruction to third world countries.
You know, I think history repeats itself.
6. I don't think Obama would attack Pakistan, but even if he did, I don't see this leading to WWIII. It may lead to 10, but even that is doubtful.
7. I think the worst is over for the economy, as long as Obama and the democrats in the congress don't do anything incredibly moronic. (i.e. let GM and either Ford or Chrysler go out of business)
8. It's possible, but I think it's unlikely. if there was a push to get it done soon, they would have tried to get it done around the time of the olympics.
9. well this I kind of agree with. I don't Obama said too much about what he was going to change. It was just a general concept.
10. I don't think oil will hit $200 any time soon. When oil got close to $150 it killed the american economy and started to have an effect on china as well. I believe it was Ikea that decided to shift a manufacturing plant to the US because the price of oil made it uneconomical to ship it from China.
11. This won't happen unless 6,7, 9, and 10 happen. I don't believe it will
12. I believe the US and Russia are already selling guns. I don't think they will sell WMD's though as that would be something that will keep those countries from attacking them. if they did, that would be incredibly moronic as well. When the russian economy was in ruins following the collapse of communism, they sold guns, helicopters, planes and guns, but they never sold their nukes.
6 - I seriously doubt Obama will attack Pakistan & even if he does, it will be in agreemment with the United Nations.
7 - I have mixed agreement with. While I believe the global economy will decline further this year, I also believe it will recover with the creation of new, good-paying jobs.
8 - I can see that.
9 - You seem like an obvious Obama-hater.
10 - Oil prices will not go up that high anytime soon. Why do you think that oil prices are as low as they are now, $45.94, as of this writing? It's a simple supply & demand thing. Global supply has gone down, so the price has to go down to.
11 - I can agree that the # of criminals in the world will go up, but I can't put a # figure on it. Probably not double
12 - The U.S. & Russia will not profit from selling guns & WMDs. The U.S. will profit from putting people to work, repairing our national infrastructure. Russia will continue to profit by becoming the new superpower, the economic one. I call it the Wal-Mart approach. How do you get rich, by selling everyone something that they need, at a very low price. The Waltons are all billionaires, look it up.
The sad part is that the guy is probably right and all you people keep squeezing your eyes shut hoping it'll all go away. I feel for you, when things go bad you're going to be in a world of hurt. I know you're wondering if I'm wearing my tinfoil hat...well, you can call me names and you can call me crazy but that doesn't change where the world is heading. Honestly I hope you guys are right. I'm only 31 and I have dreams of owning a house and having a wife and kids, but the more I really look at all the terrible crap that everyone has to deal with everyday the more hopeless things get.
Life wasn't always like this. There was a time when you could support a 5 person family on a single income and have a house and a car. My dad did it in the 70's earning only $800/mo. Now where are we? People can barely get by with a TWO incomes. Parents are killing their children and children are killing their parents, the State of California is going bankrupt an ENTIRE country already went bankrupt. People are losing their jobs and homes at an incredible rate, we have to worry about terrorists so our government asks us to give up OUR freedoms so that we're SAFER. Who's safe? Who? No one I know. Everyone I know is so close to being poor that one little thing happens and they'll be homeless.
What is it you people are arguing about? Blu-ray vs DVD? Who cares? Why do you care about that and not all this other stuff? Why is it that the one person, who points out that there might be a little more to worry about than if Blu-Ray really takes of this year, he gets jumped all over and called a racist skinhead?
Life wasn't always like this. There was a time when people cared about each other and now it's over.
You're a complete moron.
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Wow, that's not really being fair now is it? What did complete morons do to get grouped up with the likes of backside clowns like hmdz105? I think you owe complete morons an apology for insulting them.
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by gregorytga
January 1, 2009 3:43 AM PST
- Guys, internet is serious business!
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by themoho
January 3, 2009 8:15 PM PST
- 4srsly
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