2009: A Year in Review & Looking Ahead

Trend Setters

Looking back, 2009 started out fairly bleak as the world fought to fend off an economic collapse, combat climate change and disasters (both natural and human-induced), while elsewhere, we lost superstars in the music and film industry. Thankfully, the second half saw semblance of economic recovery for several nations. In fact, we even witnessed Lionel Messi take home World Player of 2009 on more than one occasion, if that's a positive sign in the context of the sporting world.

Back on matters close to heart, tech developments were still going strong for the year and you needn't search hard as our list of Top 100 Products for 2009 further reinforced that 2009 has been a good year for technology. Some companies actually came out looking better as a result of the downturn, and we'll touch more on this on the following page. For starters, we present you a light hearted video on the top tech trends and cultures observed for 2009; not to mention, what you should keep your eyes peeled for the coming year:-

Play

 To wrap up the video, here's what was discussed - 

• e-book Readers: The Amazon Kindle 2 keeps astounding folks with the device being the most bought Christmas gift from Amazon this year. Sony and Barnes&Noble are not going to take that lying down and are coming up with their own brand of readers. Will we see even more players in 2010? The latest news has it that LG has acquired licensing for daylight-viewable LCD technology, so you can certainly hope to expect more developments from the Korean chaebol in time to come along with other players. Other expectations are larger screens as well as affordable color screen based e-book readers.
• 3D Entertainment: How many of us are beginning to love those new 3D movies that tease the eyes to the core? Well, with the technology hitting the living room scene in 2010 (thanks to the new Blu-ray 3D specs finalized), we might also see a new fashion trend - 3D glasses. Don't forget, true 3D gaming is picking up on both the desktop and mobile front thanks to NVIDIA's 3D Vision and manufacturers coming out with more 3D friendly screens.
• Touchscreen Gadgets: Phones obviously have a lot to say in this department but PCs and notebooks are definitely going in that direction thanks to Windows 7 having support for such functionality natively. Expect more product segments to embrace touchscreen technology for new forms of interactivity and yet another chance for companies to charge a premium for such devices.
• High Definition Content: With Full HD TVs becoming more affordable to the masses, no longer are we deciding whether to go Full HD or HD Ready, but we are asking ourselves for more HD content. With keen competition by cable providers, expect them to satiate this demand in a bid to differentiate themselves, besides even more varied content. Further out, developments for Quad Full HD TVs are underway for the masses.
• Maps: Gone are the bulky load of the trusty Street Directory and flipping its several pages back and forth. Welcome GPS devices, Bing Maps, Google Street View and Nokia Maps. Designed to assist you to your destination in the most efficient manner, even the contestants of Amazing Race could use them. Compass, anyone?

Well, we couldn't squeeze all of 2009 in a small video clip, here's a few more notable points worthy of note: 

• The OS Wars: Shortly after Snow Leopard was released, Windows 7 was introduced to much fanfare with folks embracing it far better than Vista's initial uptake. After all, Windows 7 is a much better and reworked edition of Vista - A Vista done right. Now with Google announcing their own operating system coming first half of 2010, we look forward to seeing what they can dish out without the premium prices of course. Certainly it's not going to rival a full fledged Microsoft operating system, but perhaps it might be an ideal OS for netbooks?

While that's just the personal computing front, expect even more excitement and developments for the mobile OS space as Window Mobile 7, Samsung's bada and Nokia's Mameo operating system take center stage along with the existing crowd. The device in your pocket is going to see the biggest OS change in 2010.

• Demise of Physical Media: To put it ever so eloquently, physical media discs are dead, or at least dying. What isn't online now, we ask you? With the advent of online application stores like the Apple App Store, Windows Marketplace

and more, we are seeing more manufacturers heading in this direction saving manufacturing costs on discs, boxes and the lot, thus lower pricing for original content. The same applies for online music stores as you don't have to buy CDs and transcode the tracks to your music players. Instead, just download them straight from the source, complete with album artwork and all.

The list can go on, what with Augmented Reality making its appearance on consumer applications and Cloud Computing reaching out to the masses amongst others. You can read more about these in the January 2010 issue of HWM. Besides tech trends, another interesting angle for your consideration if you're into speculation are the comeback kids of 2009. Companies like Motorola who we all thought was going gracefully exit the mobile phone space has came back with the Droid; All this and more in the next page.

The Comeback Kids of 2009

The last thing you'll expect in a year where the economic crisis dominated the headlines is that some tech companies actually came out of the storm looking better than before. Some of these success stories can be attributed to luck, while others have been rewarded for keeping faith in their technologies and products.

AMD/ATI is one that comes to mind. Down and apparently out even before the economy tanked, there was little to suggest a change in fortunes. The DDR3-compatible Phenom IIs were released but Intel still had the more powerful architecture, which went mainstream this year with the Lynnfield family (albeit delayed), further squeezing AMD's market share. On the graphics side, ATI products at least were competitive against NVIDIA.

But by the end of 2009, Intel's past came back to haunt it, with its anti-competitive practices leading to lawsuits from the State of New York and the US Federal Trade Commission. Intel also had to in a compensate AMD more than a billion dollars long-running lawsuit over the same practices. Meanwhile, ATI's DX11-capable Radeon HD 5800 series has the technological and performance edge over NVIDIA. Accordingly, AMD's shares have risen from less than US$2 at the start of 2009 to almost US$10 recently.

Another tech company that has seen a turnaround is Motorola. Without a hit in the mobile phone business for years, the company saw a return to the big leagues by allying itself with Google's rising mobile OS, Android. The result - the much hyped and heavily advertised Motorola Droid has revived the company's image and mindshare among consumers. To a much lesser extent, Palm's WebOS and Pre smartphone reminded consumers that the pioneering company is still alive, though neither Palm nor Motorola are out of the woods yet.

While it would seem incredulous to lump Microsoft together with these improbable comeback stories, the fact is that the largest software company in the world is in danger of losing its relevance in a world increasingly moving away from the Window-centric desktop. After Windows Vista failed to convince consumers, the October release and subsequent success of Windows 7 is a much needed tonic. It still remains to be seen if Microsoft can turn its behemoth legacy-riddled ship around without Bill Gates at the helm.

Of course, with every successful comeback, there are those that remain in crisis mode. Nokia is one that's hemorrhaging its smartphone market share to rivals Apple and RIM. With its Symbian OS apparently on life support, all eyes are on whether Nokia's apparent successor, Maemo can survive the competitive mobile OS scene next year.

Dell is another example, with its top spot in the US market surpassed by HP this year while its worldwide share has also eroded, conceding second place to rapidly growing Acer. Dell has been slowly losing market share since the netbook craze emerged last year and we aren't too optimistic about any changes next year in a very competitive PC market.

Not forgetting our local shores, we cast our eyes on two former tech darlings: Charted Semiconductor and Creative Technology. The former has been sold to Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Company, the ones behind GlobalFoundries. The sale represented a loss for investors, with many unable to recoup but a fraction of what they had paid for their shares. Creative on the other hand has been relatively quiet this year. The usual product updates have not been too exciting but a shift in direction at the start of 2009 in the form of an ARM-based SoC platform for media applications, the Zii, may yet bear fruit next year.

Finally, for those who grew up kicking ass and chewing gum, 2009 also marks the end of the longest running vaporware in tech. Yes, the Duke is no more. Developer 3D Realms officially gave up on the game in May, miring the franchise in legal purgatory with publisher Take-Two Interactive suing 3D Realms. We may yet see some form of the Duke in the future but we aren't holding our breath.

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