Cringely's 2006 Results, 2007 Predictions

Underpants writes "Bob Cringely posts the results of his 2006 predictions (only 69% successful, so Bob is sad). He also lists his calls for 2007; none are particularly shocking, but some are at least interesting. 2007 predictions from the article: '4) No one DRM technology emerges as the winner and the RIAA begins to back off as it loses a few legal cases. Still, no Internet-only song wins a Grammy or is even recognized as existing. 9) Zune 2.0 appears, isn't brown, but still nobody buys it. 10) The year the net crashed (in the USA). Video overwhelms the net and we all learn that the broadband ISPs have been selling us something they can't really deliver.'"

69% is a lot better than most prognosticators

This guy should run a stock tip sheet.

Question for 2007:

Will Vista be the Zune of operating systems?

Re:Question for 2007:

Why? because it's brown [microsoft.com] or because it's expensive?

Re:Question for 2007:

The bare bones Xbox360 costs just as much as the OS for Ultimate Vista. You can do more with $400 on an Xbox than a media with a paid-for key with Vista.

Re:Question for 2007:

Seeing as it's gonna come preinstalled on pretty much every new computer sold in the next year, I doubt it. There's gonna be dozens (if not hundreds) of millions of Vista users by the end of the year. Believe it

Re:Question for 2007:

It's an idiotic comparison. ME was an in-between, a sideshow to keep the customers happy (and look how well that went) while the real OS was being developed. Vista is one of the largest investments microsoft has ever made. They're gonna push it hard. And virtually everyone who buys it (certainly corporations) won't care one iota about all the DRM stuff. "Look at all that pretty glass!" is going to be way, way more important.

Re:Question for 2007:

I don't think anyone is going to "buy" Vista. At least, not in a fundamental sense. Certainly, corporations won't... most large companies are just moving from 2000 to XP, and that's only because Microsoft has pulled the support rug from under them. For the average company there is not one compelling reason to move forward quickly.

It's not like this is rocket science. Large companies were still running Windows 3.1 until 1997, and then moved to Windows NT 4. The move from that to 2000 was about five years ago. The move from Windows 3.1 to NT was obviously needed due to sheer obsolescence; the move from NT to 2000 was the same, albeit to a smaller degree (USB support, AD support).

Vista is really an OS for consumers and to ensure Microsoft has a new product as promised. I see nothing good coming from Vista in the end. In many ways, it is the new ME: a stop-gap OS...

Refreshing to see a pundit...

...going through their predictions list for once. Also, he played the umpire quite well - that's some pretty harsh judgements. (Wrong on iPhone/iTV - heh.)

I like number 10

In Italy this is already happening, with the main ISP (Telecom Italia) faking DNS problems to cover up the fact that they just can't deliver all the ADSL they sold. Despite the fact that they shape Bittorrent (and other P2P) traffic...

Re:I like number 10

Curious!

I'm on Rogers HighSpeed in Canada, and lately they've been shaping BT traffic, and the past few months having intermittent connectivity issues -- just a couple or few days ago the service wasn't working, but the lights on the modem all appeared fine... Needless to say, I didn't want to call customer support to be on hold for an hour or more and finally be told that they were working on the problem and to try it again the next day (useless!) so after a few hours and several resets of the modem I decided to try a ping from my router and lo and behold, it worked...

I punched in the IP for a DNS server that I knew of, and used that to get the numbers for OpenDNS and now have my router issuing those with DHCP requests instead of the Rogers DNS servers. Funny -- everything has been working just fine since I made that change.

Is Telecom Itialia also owned by Ted Turner?!? At any rate, it seems they went to the same "We've Oversubscribed, What Can We Do Now?" convention as each other.... Bastards!

Easy prediction on DRM

No DRM emerges as a winner? of course not, nobody wins with DRM, not even the record companies or the artists, as consumers hate it and it drives sales away...

Re:Easy prediction on DRM

Oh, somebody always wins with DRM.

The companies that create DRM schemes, of course!

Re:Easy prediction on DRM

Not really, because their DRM scheme either becomes a publicity nightmare (like Sony's rootkit) or it gets cracked very shortly after it's released and all those months (or years) of research and development are for naught, forcing them to start over again from scratch.

I view DRM scheme creators in a similar light to anti-virus software makers: their task is never-ending because they are attacking the symptoms of a problem, not the problem itself and it's a very thankless job.

Can someone explain #2 and #5 2006 predictions

2) I said OS X would run on generic Intel hardware, though Apple wouldn't support it. This is true in the sense that people have made OS X run on generic Intel hardware, but APPLE hasn't, so the item is wrong. ..... ..... .....
5) IBM customers revolt. It is happening slower than makes sense, but yes, they are revolting. True.

Number 2 seems like he got it right but is saying it's wrong for some reason, I don't quite get #5 at all - haven't read anything to this effect but I'm probably wrong.

IBM's Customers will Revolt

Just read here:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/predictions/bob/2006/p rediction_bob_20060104_000992.html [pbs.org]

However, Cringley goes into more overall depth in a previous article.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_200 60518_000897.html [pbs.org]

MANY IBM employees DO feel this way, btw. IBM appears to be spending little in the way of future product development (including feature enhancements to current products), other than just outright buying companies and incorporating their products. Stock performance has been mediocre for years.

Sooner or later, that kind of internal attitude starts showing up to your customers.

A bit wrong...

2007 prediction - "Still, no Internet-only song wins a Grammy or is even recognized as existing."

This already happened in the UK in 2006. Crazy by Gnarls Barkely went to number 1 on the charts without having a single physical copy on sale. It is one of the best songs of 2006. It stayed at nubmer one for nine weeks.

Re:A bit wrong...

That's the UK, Bro. It's not real if it don't happen Stateside.

Re:A bit wrong...

Isn't the UK the market where a Celphone ringtone hit the pop charts?

11. Intel rebrands self and no one notices

Did this happen? Intel changes their campaign up every year,
and they now use "Leap Ahead"...but there's been no
real rebranding as far as i can tell.

I predict Cringley is going to get even more annoying and
no one will even notice.

Re:11. Intel rebrands self and no one notices

They did rebrand.

Old Logo [krytyk.pl] and now ... New Logo [krytyk.pl].

Did someone actually care? nope.

umm 69%?

From the article:

That is my worst performance EVER. I got nine of 15 predictions correct for a 60 percent average. In my defense I'll point out that just because I am wrong now doesn't mean I'll still be wrong in another week. Three years ago I predicted Intel would support AMD's 64-bit instruction extensions, but they took 53 weeks to do so, making me off by seven days. I think that by the end of February, 2-3 of these predictions could still swing the other direction.

Editors: Please RTFA? Thanks.

Re:Oops, my bad. Not Zonk...for once.

I'm the submitter, and that figure was my typo

And it's the editors job to find and correct obvious mistakes. Hence the "edit" of editor.

MS support?

"Microsoft is discussing internally how to help Sony from going under, since that would create a raft of antitrust problems for Redmond. I am not making this up."

Microsoft supporting another company (Apple)? What an unexpected event.

Really, if this is a prediction, fire Nostradomus.

Sigh

Again, from the article:

6) Sony solves Blu-ray laser diode problem just in time for IBM to suffer production difficulties with the Cell processor. More bad news for Sony.
7) The Sony news is SO bad that it deserves two predictions. I would predict the fall of CEO Howard Stringer again if there were clearly somebody at Sony who wants his job. The business is in such difficulty that Microsoft is discussing internally how to help Sony from going under, since that would create a raft of antitrust problems for Redmond. I am not making this up.

This guy's being impossible. Those predictions are as solid as his PhD degree. Maybe if he added a question mark to each of his predictions, he can get away with them more easily.

Bruce Willis will save you...

10) The year the net crashed (in the USA)

I hear it will happen on July 4 [imdb.com]

As Martha Stewart would say...

It's a good thing.

If Cringely is sad, then that's a good reason for the rest of us to be happy.

Tecos and cablecos raped our asses for decades

We were supposed to have FTTH (fiber to the home) 20 years ago.

We've been paying surcharges to get FTTH for 20 years.

To date the Telcos and cablecos have delivered 0 inches of FTTH. Not an inch of fiber has been laid.

And now America is quantitatively and qualitatively behind, in an area where we were the leaders, only to get surpassed by anybody who's actually laid in some FTTH.

The difference of having bandwidth as opposed to starving for it is, well just imagine yourself back before the internet. Imagine yourself having to use carbon paper. Life was a lot slower then.

Now with uTube and MoviesOnDemand, VideosOnDemand and the thirst for all kinds of streaming media, the demand for band is going to collapse the copper infrastructure. It wont melt the wire down as much as it will vaporize it in a coronal flare.

If you work in management for a telco or a cableco, look for Federal indictments to come to your office before the decade is out.

Re:Tecos and cablecos raped our asses for decades

I have FTTH from Verizon. I live in a suburb of Dallas. 15mB down 2mB up, 300+ TV channels (all digital) and phone service. Its all about $120. I'm very happy with the service.

Yet Another Internet Crash Prediction

Ah yes, once again someone predicts that the Internet (or major portion thereof) will "collapse" at a certain point! Which would be frightening, except that such predictions have been made on a regular basis for quite some time.

Robert Metcalfe used to regularly predict this, each time moving the target date when it didn't happen on schedule. It appears that Cringely has decided to pick up the ball and keep it going. If I'm counting correctly, the Internet was supposed to have collapsed under the weight of traffic about a dozen times so far. It hasn't yet, but let's not let past performance stop future predictions!

This guy... try 40%, anyone have to add to this?

1) I predicted that Apple would announce iPhone and iTV products as well as content deals. The content deals happened and some of the iTV technology was demonstrated, but I think we'll have to wait another week or so for the rest, so I guess I was wrong.

Yeah, wrong. Not to mention that I wrote something about Apple moving in this direction a year and a half ago. This is no "prediction" its writing on the wall.

2) I said OS X would run on generic Intel hardware, though Apple wouldn't support it. This is true in the sense that people have made OS X run on generic Intel hardware, but APPLE hasn't, so the item is wrong.

There are a number of technical reasons that this will likely not happen. Yes, wrong.

3) More products, services, and a stock split for Google. I was right about the first bits but that's like predicting sunset will come. The split didn't happen because I never realized how much cash Google was going to generate -- far more than they can even spend. So the item is wrong.

Yeah, wrong

4) More bad news for Sun. That's true.

I might say that sun really has remained the same. If you use stock price as an indicator of "bad" then they are neither good nor bad. I might disagree with this assesment. Wrong.

5) IBM customers revolt. It is happening slower than makes sense, but yes, they are revolting. True.

Ok, whatever.

6) More Vista delay. I'm going to claim this one because the Vista that's just appearing was delayed twice in 2006 alone and is a shadow of what it was intended to be. True.

Yeah, no. You were wrong. Vista shipped in 06, I've seen the cd's myself.

7) PS3 is in trouble as is Howard Stringer. This is all true. The PS3 was late to market, the blue laser diode shortage has hurt the company, developers aren't amused, and the word inside Sony is that Sir Howard is toast. True.

Right.

8) WiMax will suffer under Sprint Nextel. My feeling here was that merging the two cell companies would be too distracting for them to do very much with their top asset (in my view) -- all those WiMax licenses. Since they didn't roll out much of anything in 2006, I'd say this one is true.

Not sprints fault. The standard hasn't really been ratified. There are only a few makers of the silicon necessary to drive the antennas. This has nothing to do with sprint and everything to do with the hardware. I'd say this is wrong.

9) Media Center PCs still won't take off as they try to compete with cheaper embedded devices. True.

Yeah, about right.

10) TiVo will be bought. Obviously wrong, though I still don't see the company surviving as an independent. Wrong.

No purchase, wrong.

11) Intel will rebrand itself and nobody will notice. Intel did, we didn't -- true.

Intel did not rebrand. They launched two new TV ads a few product logos - but they have the same "feel" of the last 15 years of advertising. I wouldn't really call that a "rebranding" effort. So, wrong.

12) No desktop OS or PC from Google. People (not me) were absolutely convinced this time last year that Google was going head-to- head against Windows. Nope. It didn't happen, and won't. I was correct.

Ok, right.

13) Skype won't make much, if any, money for eBay in 2006 (or 2007). Skype got a lot of press and moved a long way toward building a better service that makes more business sense, but the company is still at least a year away from making money. True.

Ok. Right

14) Yahoo will surprise us. Wrong. Yahoo is in a crisis from which the company may not recover with current management. Sigh.

Ok. Right.

15) Apple will license technology from Burst. They should have by now but the companies are still fighting in court. For those following the fight, a hearing on February 8th will lead to a decision less than a month later that will tightly define this patent battle in a way that will make one

Intel DID rebrand

The fact that there are quite a few posts saying Cringely got that one wrong makes it look like he was in fact right. They dropped the Pentium brand name as their primary line, a name that they had been using for ~13 years. How many times have you looked at a software box and seen "Pentium Required/Recommended" over those last 13 years? The reason no one noticed is because it isn't as big a deal. Yes the Core 1/2 chips offer better power, performance and aren't as hot, but the average computer buyer doesn't look at hardware like that. They look at what software will work on it, Windows? Check. Office? Check. An Intel or AMD sticker only matters to zealots anymore.

The other missed prediction

I would be happy if this year he could just predict accurately when do Nerd TV will be back ;)

Nerd TV [pbs.org]

An overstatement, but probably yes

The year the net crashed (in the USA).

I don't think that the net is going to crash. Or even slow down for everyone. I do think, however, that cable ISPs might have big problems administering networks. The local cable ISP where I live sends me flyers in the mail every week, at least, explaining how I can get my entire home entertainment needs packaged up. They seem to be doing a gigantic sale to a wide market, and I have for a long time suspected that they are not putting as much work into the technical side of running an ISP (and a massive one), as convincing people that they can get teh television and teh pr0n and teh cellphonez with ringtonez cheaply. This might be just a prejudice of mine, but I think a lot of these "entertainment ISPs" and their customers are going to realize that its not as easy as the smiling glossy people in the ads have it.

But I don't think it will crash the net. I think a few markets will have slow down, a few class action lawsuits, people realizing that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and then their will be some reinvestment in infrastructure and everything will be back to normal fairly quickly.

I agree about #5

FTA: "5) IBM customers revolt. It is happening slower than makes sense, but yes, they are revolting. True."

I agree. IBM customers ARE revolting!

Your alternative predictions?

Okay, some people are making fun of Cringely's predictions.

Fine, but they should put their money where their mouth is: let's see their alternative predictions and let Slashdot revisit the issue next year.
Maybe there are better players out there, there is no reason for them to hide.

We could even have a Slashdot prediction, maybe based on votes from Slashdot users.

There are so many possibilities - to put your money where your mouth is.

Imminent collapse of the Net predicted, news at 11

10) The year the net crashed (in the USA). Video overwhelms the net and we all learn that the broadband ISPs have been selling us something they can't really deliver.

If something could have killed the Net, it's P2P. Yet, it is still humming along just fine. A single dedicated file sharer can easily consume the equivalent in bandwidth of an entire neighborhood worth of crappy pixelated YouTube video viewing, and there are many dedicated file sharer already. My guess is that Akamai and Google's servers are going to melt before the Net come to its knees.

However, between the need for lower latency due to VoIP deployment and the constant massive increase in traffic from domestic Net users, it's another good year to be a network engineer.

What in God's name is he babbling about?

3) More products, services, and a stock split for Google. I was right about the first bits but that's like predicting sunset will come. The split didn't happen because I never realized how much cash Google was going to generate -- far more than they can even spend. So the item is wrong.

What does how much cash a company generates have to do with a stock split? Nothing (well, generating lots of cash makes a split slightly more, rather than less, likely.)

Does he think that a stock split somehow raises capital? He should stick to technology and avoid finance.

#5 Is Wrong

5) AMD and Intel continue to beat the crap out of each other with customers gaining but wondering why there is no software that supports those new 8-way processors, as both compilers and third-party developers fail to keep up.

The compilers exist, in the sense that outfits like PathScale [pathscale.com] and PGI [pgroup.com] already have compilers that support OpenMP and some degree of automatic parallelization. They need a lot of work to scale to larger numbers of cores but the primary roadblock here is integration with IDEs and moving these technologies into mainstream computing. If these companies and Microsoft figure out how to make these compilers pervasive with Visual C++, etc. things will change quite dramatically. I don't think this will happen in 2007, though. What will happen is that compiler vendors make significant strides improving access to parallel programming models, pareticualrly with support for Co-Array Fortran [wikipedia.org] and UPC [gwu.edu].

emerge cringely

5) AMD and Intel continue to beat the crap out of each other with customers gaining but wondering why there is no software that supports those new 8-way processors, as both compilers and third-party developers fail to keep up.

No software? As a Gentoo user, the first piece of software that leaps to mind is make! Software ain't what's holding my box back.

#5 is just wrong.

"AMD and Intel continue to beat the crap out of each other with customers gaining but wondering why there is no software that supports those new 8-way processors, as both compilers and third-party developers fail to keep up." Linux... VMWare... hello??

my predictions

here are my predictions for 2007

• Vista will receive a cold welcome from the user market, due to intrusive DRM
• half of my 2007 preditions will be wrong

Hey, I think I will get at least 50% predictions correct!

Re:Help for the RIAA

Why don't they (the RIAA) just lossy-encode and decode all songs before releasing them on CD?

Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just use a tin can on a string for a microphone?

KFG

Re:Help for the RIAA

Because recompressed files are perfectly acceptable to most people, who wouldn't even notice the difference. Only a miniscule number of people would find it "unacceptable." And most of them probably couldn't hear the difference anyway - it's all ego like those "Monster Cables" and other shit that appeals to "audiophiles."