Predicting the future...

Writing some personal thoughts on what happens after 5 years, so that I can check back later!

- .NET has more penetration, still everyone hasn't switched to Vista/.NET 3.0. But WPF/E is getting popular, even though Flash is still strong due to better cross platform support.
- Java/J2EE is for server side development, as a way to reduce costs in distributed server farms running Linux. The innovation curve is down for the language and it is in a stage similar to what C++ is today.
- Linux is no longer seen as a desktop OS, open source continues to thrive but the quality & innovation of open source contributions is debated more as the good stuff get polluted by mediocre contributions.
- Virtualization & multicore CPUs are ubiquitous and is used to provision such farms in real time with zero downtime. Xen & Linux forms the basis of many such servers in the cloud. Some users have started to subscribe to personal virtual machines. Corporations widely use Windows virtualization.
- Google continues to be the leader in Search, but has failed(relegated to small pockets) in the application wars with MS on the enterprise land. AJAX has good device support, but is getting replaced by RIA/Smart Clients running in the browser. Advertisements still makes money, but the apps would move to desktop/RIA beyond AJAX.
- Running as a non administrator is the norm thanks to Vista, thus reducing a class of attacks. But, still malware and spam and other evils continue to exist.

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