How will you be computing in the next 12 months? PC Authority brings you 2005's big technology stories - before they happen.
This is it. We've come to the time of the year when we make fearless predictions about the year ahead, and quietly cross our fingers and hope such predictions won't come back to bite us in the butt a year from now. Over the next few pages we'll walk you through the products that we think will get most of the attention this year, but before you read, we have two words for you: caveat emptor. The IT industry is a fickle one, and nearly every year the big story turns out to be, much like the Spanish Inquisition, something that nobody expects. Last year it was the iPod and iTunes. What surprises will 2005 bring?
A year in review
Let's face it, 2004 was a bit of a yawn on the technology front. Advancements in PC power stalled, with the possible exception of graphics cards, and new technology innovations were rare in both the business and consumer space.
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Other cool stuff from 2004
We've mentioned the iPod and broadband, but there were a few other notable happenings in 2004. They may not have set the market on fire, but here's our pick of some of the best things to happen in the last year.
Cheap colour laser printers - colour laser printers have dropped so much in price that their purchase cost is now challenging inkjets, and their cost per page blows inkjets away. Two years ago, it would have been unthinkable to get a colour laser for $600. Now, just about every printer vendor has a product at that price.
Mozilla - it still only holds a small proportion of the browser market, but Mozilla started making an impact on the total market dominance of IE. For good reason too - it's a better browser, and doesn't have the gaping security problems of the Microsoft browser.
Web services - finally everybody has agreed on the method by which applications should talk to each other over the internet. We have high hopes for web services, and expect it to drive a new wave of innovative integrated applications in 2005 and beyond. |
If we were to pick the two big technology stories of the last year, it would have to be the final arrival of broadband and the enormous success of the Apple iPod and the iTunes service.
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| Apple's iPod had a massive year, and contiual updates and third party add-ons suggest it's set for another big one. |
Broadband finally took off because of price cuts in the first quarter. Telstra BigPond announced sub-$30 price plans, and its parent company was forced by the ACCC soon after to lower its wholesale prices so that other ISPs could compete with this offering. Suddenly, many Australians were looking at broadband anew, dumping their dial-up accounts and picking up low-cost services for their home and business. In August, the number of broadband connections in Australia reached a million, and is expected to grow to three million and beyond in the next five years.
The growth in broadband spurred growth in home and small business networking. With a compelling reason to link their PCs up now, people were looking to Ethernet and wireless connectivity to share their new broadband connections. Wireless, much as in 2003, was a big winner in 2004.
Telstra's iron lock on the 'last mile' of internet connectivity in Australia was also challenged in 2004, with the introduction of wireless broadband and third-party DSL provision. So much so, that we're predicting that wireless broadband is going to be one of the very big stories of 2005. If there was any technology that struck a chord in 2004, however, it was the Apple iPod. You know you've struck gold when the general public refers to any similar device by your product's name -- it's a position that the iPod shares with other products like Kleenex and BandAid.
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| Apple's iTunes music store will hit our shores in the next few months. |
Apple also made waves with iTunes, an online sales site for music. After years of record companies trying to sue the pants off anybody even tangentially involved in distributing music online, Apple showed that, given a reasonable price, people are prepared to pay for music they acquire online. It was refreshing to see, and is hopefully the beginning of a new era of media distribution. Now we have to wait to see if the movie studios get on board.