This post is part of a series where I try to make outlandish predictions for 2008. Read the introduction for more details.

5. New Microsoft OS announcement

The stock market is a harsh place, even if you make more money than anyone else, they still expect an even better performance next year, then even more the next year. On those grounds, the first three quarters of 2007 were not great for Microsoft. However in the forth quarter, Santa Claus saved the day as Halo and the Xbox 360 flew like magic reindeer off the shelves.

The problem for Microsoft is that some of its other new products are not making much profit, while the golden goose, the operating system and office software, didn't do as well as the pre-release hype made people expect. Companies, scared of making themselves incompatible with the .doc using world, are in no rush to roll out MS Office 2007 and its new default file format that is incompatible with older versions of MS Office, while the lack of enthusiasm and uptake for Vista has been embarrassing for Microsoft. Also embarrassing for the RAM vendors who ramped up production, expecting a large number of new PC sales for Vista, only to create a glut that made RAM prices collapse.

I can't see Microsoft taking the Vista debacle lying down, it will do something to get its marketing back on track.

So I predict that in 2008, Microsoft will announce (but probably not deliver) a new non-Vista Operating System that is scalable through to lighter, lower-end systems. It could be WinCE based, or based on the X-Box's OS, but I think more likely it will be XP based, there have been rumours of such an OS running on a souped-up version of the OLPC XO, though the requirement to add extra hardware to the XO means that it still has not come close to the scalability of Linux.

Some people in the Mac and Linux worlds may think he is a nut, but few would deny that John C Dvorak is one of the biggest tech journalists in the Windows world; but even Microsoft-fanboy Dvorak lost patience with Windows. :

> "All the cool and promised features of the original vision of Longhorn were gutted simply because it was beyond Microsoft's capability to implement those features."

Windows's bloat and complexity has gone beyond what the organisational structure of Microsoft can maintain. If the design is bad to start with, throwing more time, money and thousands of programmers at the problem does not make it any better.

Dvorak's suggestion is the same as mine: "Work on a whole new OS starting today" source.

If you exclude Halo, then .Net and the CLI/DLR are the best things to come out of Microsoft in the 21st Century. So have the .Net platform running on a light and lean system, call it something else, say "Doors" and sell it as a parallel product to Windows. That way Microsoft does not have to promise to support every dumb-ass program and every piece of buggy hardware released in the last twenty years. Instead, get the architecture and security right first.

Okay that last paragraph was wishful thinking, but I think they will make some kind of OS announcement to try and improve the atmosphere around Windows.

Of course, last year I predicted that Vista would be a runaway success as all the Micromuppets ran out to get it in 2007; so what the heck do I know about the Windows world. Nothing!

6. 2008 will be the year of Independent and unencumbered Music

2007 saw 3 out of the 4 multi-national music labels begin to back out of DRM.

Digital music itself will grow in 2008, so there will be more content than ever before, including DRM-infected content. However, the idea that DRM is the best approach for music distribution will be further undermined in 2008. DRM is a zombie, although it will be seen as dead, it will continue to walk in 2008, it will just smell worse and a few more parts will drop off.

2007 also saw Radiohead and some other established commercial acts become free agents as a diversity of approaches to music production and distribution are becoming viable.

In 2007, the RIAA lawsuits against its customers began to have a lack of evidence problem, this will only get worse as the Windows-based peer-to-peer programs will route around the RIAA's approach and leave increasingly less evidence of file-sharing on the local machine and on the wire.

Independent record labels with a more laid back view of music sharing will slowly begin to displace the 4 large RIAA music companies. A recent article in the Washington post sums ups the present situation:

> The RIAA's legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only "created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies," ... "Every problem they're trying to solve is worse now than when they started."

A thriving independent movie scene is still some way off, but the recent Hollywood writers strike is making writers think about the issues.

In an unrelated trend, other media companies will have noticed the BBC swapping out Windows Media DRM downloads with YouTube-style Flash Video. So on-demand streaming and Flash Video in particular will do well in 2008.

Discuss This Post - Leave a Comment