So long 2009, and thanks for another decade in tech

Rodney Gedda

Rodney Gedda is the former deputy editor of CIO and former editor of Techworld.

So we’ve come to the end of another year and it’s time to ring in 2010. 2010, how about that? It’s been a whole decade since the Y2K and a whole new Y problem emerged. The Generation Y (Y they won’t leave home?) crowd may think it rules the tech roost, but since time is of the essence, the Gen-Y will be getting a generation older after 2010.

At TechWorld we have high hopes for the next decade. Why? Well if you look back at how much has changed over the past 10 years we can’t help but get excited at what might be in store from 2010 to 2020.

Without being too outlandish, TechWorld has postulated a few tech predictions for the next decade.

As always we welcome commentary on what people think will be the next big things over the next decade. Most of all, we better make the next decade count!

Smarter mobile devices

One thing we can expect to see a lot more of – and carry around – in 2010 is a smarter mobile phone. “Smartphone” is now a word of the last decade. All new phones capturing the market are “smartphones”.

We can expect future releases of the iPhone to be successful, and Google’s Android mobile operating system is starting to make a name for itself as an “open” alternative.

HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and even non-traditional phone vendors like Acer have announced plans to ship Android-based smartphones in 2010.

The true portable computing revolution will mature over the next ten years.

Digital television

Whether you like it (or are ready for it) or not digital TV is here and the good old trusted analogue signals will begin to switch off from 2010.

Of course, we’ve had quite a few years to prepare for digital TV, but that won’t count for much if the signal reception is worse with digital in your area. Nevertheless, if you haven’t already familiarized yourself with digital TV, you will from next year.

Digital will be everywhere and since analogue is being phased out, the vendors and retailers will follow suit and stop supplying analogue television sets.

We were warned about the impending transition, now it is being forced upon us.

Life in the cloud

If the rapid rise in social networking over the later half of this decade has taught us anything is that personal and information management from 2010 will be heavily depended on public cloud computing.

Social networking phenomena like Facebook and Twitter are all well and good, but the full ramifications of cloud computing will be realized when people routinely use networked services for most of their daily computing needs.

Services like scheduling, document management, storage and backups, collaboration, and even application development will become mainstream – all through the humble Web browser.

In fact, the humble Web browser continues to become more sophisticated, and combined with advent of HTML 5, we can expect the user experience of cloud computing to improve significantly.

Of course, we can also expect people to be more demanding of how their information is managed by public cloud providers.

Privacy is now more important than ever.

Generation Z

As much as Generation Y would like to remain the centre of attention forever, there’s a new kid in town ready to challenge the IT status quo (or what’s left of it).

Generation Z, or iGeneration, will begin to make its mark in 2010.

Estimates vary as to what the demarcation year is between generations, but for someone born in, say, 1995, that person will be between 15 and 25 throughout the 2010-2020 decade. Like the generation before them, “Gen Zedders” will be the most IT-literate generation ever. Over the next ten years they will be the technology students, researchers, graduates, contractors and eventually employees. And, like their “older” Gen Y counterparts, they will be the new IT entrepreneurs and startup mongers.

Unlike the Gen Ys, however, the Zedders will have grown up with a much more mature computing and IT industry. Even the youngest of Generation Y grew up in the 1990 to 2000 decade and oh how things have changed since. As expected, the 2000-2010 decade was the most rapidly advancing in IT history and Generation Z grew up in it.

The next decade will tell how Generation Z adapt to the workplace, and how IT staff and managers will work with them.

If we can thank Gen Y for one thing it was expect surprises every time a new generation appears in the workforce. Generation Z is the next surprise.

The unexpected

If there is one thing the past decade has taught is to expect the unexpected.

We can predict all we like, but the ten years from 2010 to 2020 will reveal how much more innovation and development the tech industry has to offer.

The old saw “the best way to look into the future is to look into the past” has only too deep a meaning when observing the IT industry.

Let’s strap ourselves in and enjoy the ride.