Two Steps Foward, Two Steps Back: Bob's Predictions for 2004

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040101.html' target='_blank'>http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/...it20040101.html</a><br /><br /></div>"As promised last week, here are my predictions for 2004. But first, let's take a look back at how well I did in 2003. Years ago, a reader complained that I didn't follow up on my prognostications, and I realized he was right. People in my position make bold predictions and then hope they are forgotten. Ever since then, I've fessed-up to what I got right and wrong, and I'm probably still the only columnist anywhere who does so.<br /><br />A year ago, I wrote that HP/Compaq would continue its long slide to oblivion, and if you look underneath the corporate numbers, you'll see I was correct. The promised synergies have been minimal, growth nonexistent, and the companies are several billion dollars behind where they would have been had they remained separate.<br /><br />I predicted that Dell would continue to grow at the expense of its competitors, and would become by far the largest maker of personal computers. I was right...."<br /><br />Cringely's article doesn't delve into the PDA world, but it makes for an interesting read anyway. Go check it out!

[lonesniper]

A very interesting prediction for 2004.
I laughed at the line "Never underestimate the power of a Pentium-90 with a grudge to settle."
I think this is very true, I know tons of people running older hardware and Win98, who are going to broadband and probably won't get any firewall or AV software.
I still use my older hardware, a P166, but it runs BeOS 5 Pro so its unlikely that it will get hacked and be used to attack someone.

[Paul P]

A year ago, I wrote that HP/Compaq would continue its long slide to oblivion, and if you look underneath the corporate numbers, you'll see I was correct. The promised synergies have been minimal, growth nonexistent, and the companies are several billion dollars behind where they would have been had they remained separate.


Nevertheless, the stock returned a 25% return last year. Some oblivion. :wink:

[jsimotas]

It seems he’s thinking to much about how many he gets right next year to make any real predictions.

Jason

Developer
Evolution Mobile
www.evmo.com

[lorddsp]

I disagree about the HP & SUN predictions.

I see two possibilities for SUN: Being bought by a major player, either SW or HW: Dell? Oracle? Fujitsu? Hitachi? HP?? (just a joke!)

or reinventing themselfs, buying a major linux player (SUSE??).
Anyway, i see a new radical movement from SUN, whatever it is.

For HP i desagree at all. As a customer, i think that the adquisition of Compaq was a great deal for HP. Remember when HP was just always talking about SUN? And IBM was always so far away? They are now fighting against them, even winning sometimes, Sun is gone, DELL can´t grow as fast in the consumer market, where HP is so good... I believe that HP will be doing a lot of noise next year.

I have a radical prediction for HP: They will buy RedHat.

[beq]

Hmm, was that co-written by John C. Dvorak? :)

(What the.. what happened to the regular smiley?)