Posey's Tips & Tricks
My 2014 Tech Predictions Revisited
What did I get right and where did I fail miserably?
With each new year I like to compile a list of my technology predictions for the following year. I also like to revisit the predictions I made the previous year to see how many of them came true. I have to admit that I considered not even writing this article, because most of my predictions from last year did not come to fruition. Having said that, I was a little bit surprised when I reread my predictions from a year ago because some of them could've easily been written last week. I think some of my predictions could still come true -- they just didn't come to realization as quickly as I thought they would.
Apple Becomes Uncool
My first prediction was that at some point during the last year, Apple would become uncool. I wasn't predicting a mass exodus away from Apple, but rather that iOS would become a ho-hum OS and that people would begin feeling like they had been there and done that.
This one is actually very tough to quantify. If you look at Web search results for the last year around the query "Apple Uncool," you will find that there are plenty of results. There's no shortage of people who claim that Apple is no longer cool. Even so, there are just as many (if not more) die-hard Apple fans out there. Whether Apple has become uncool is a matter of who you ask.
Microsoft Has a Major Restructuring
My second prediction was that Microsoft would have a major restructuring. I'm happy to say that I got this prediction right. On July 17, 2014, Microsoft announced a restructuring plan to simplify its organization and align the Nokia Devices and Services business with the company's overall strategy. Enough said.
Network Virtualization Becomes the Norm
My third prediction was that over the course of 2014, network virtualization would become the norm. Certainly, network virtualization is more widely used today than it was a year ago. Even so, I don't think that it's fair to say network virtualization has become such a mainstream technology that almost every organization is using it. For right now, network virtualization still seems to be used primarily by large enterprises and by early adopters.
Office 365 Gets a Major Makeover
Out of all of the predictions I made for 2014, it was my fourth prediction that really surprised me. My reasoning behind this prediction was that Microsoft seems to be moving toward the Microsoft Azure interface model. Microsoft had made the Azure interface available for use on-premises, and I felt certain the design would carry over to Office 365.
Microsoft has a three-tiered approach to the cloud. There's the private/hybrid cloud option based on System Center. Azure is the public cloud option, and Microsoft Office 365 is the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud option. Being that there is already quite a bit of overlap between the functionality offered by these three clouds, I felt comfortable in predicting Microsoft would try to unify the administrative interface. For right now, that hasn't happened. Even so, I think that there's still a possibility Microsoft could adopt the Azure interface for Microsoft Office 365 eventually.
Xbox One Gets Productivity Apps
I was dead wrong on this one last prediction. Although the Xbox One app store includes far more apps today than it did a year ago, there are no true productivity apps.
The reason why I made the prediction was because I knew Microsoft was working toward a universal app experience. The ultimate goal behind this experience is to be able to run any Windows app on any Windows device. However, Microsoft hasn't gotten there yet. It appears true universal apps won't become a reality until Windows 10 is released. At that time, it might be possible to run Windows productivity apps on consumer-oriented devices such as a Windows Phone or Xbox One.
About the Author
Brien Posey is a 22-time Microsoft MVP with decades of IT experience. As a freelance writer, Posey has written thousands of articles and contributed to several dozen books on a wide variety of IT topics. Prior to going freelance, Posey was a CIO for a national chain of hospitals and health care facilities. He has also served as a network administrator for some of the country's largest insurance companies and for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox. In addition to his continued work in IT, Posey has spent the last several years actively training as a commercial scientist-astronaut candidate in preparation to fly on a mission to study polar mesospheric clouds from space. You can follow his spaceflight training on his Web site.