And slowly they turned...

Bit late on this, halfway through February as it is, but the crystal ball took a long to clear out this year. Very foggy it was, foggy!

VOIP.

Not really IT, but an amalgamation of some IT technology and Telecoms concepts. VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a technology that allows phone calls to be made over the internet, linked at some gateway to the phone system, such that you can dial calls from computers, handsets or other devices and reach someone either on similar systems, or on their cell phone or normal POTS (Plain old telephone system) phone. It became big last year, with companies like Vonage breaking into the big league, but this year could see major steps one-way-or-another in this technology becoming really widespread or left dead at the door. Most of what is needed now to make this work is clarification of legislation, and with several court cases in the offing, these clarifications and new laws will likely come sooner than later. VOIP could ultimately be the downfall of the RBOC's, who have woefully abused their customers with second rate service and lack of features. The RBOC's have been slow in getting fiber to houses, but that has not stopped cable companies and wireless IP network operators from diving in. The mergers in the Telecom industry, particularly with respect to cellphone companies is going to do nothing but strengthen VOIP as the big boys will be too misdirected to understand that their markets are dissolving from under their feet, principally because of their incompetence.

Offshoring.

Where will offshoring takes us now? The IT industry in the US is being destroyed as large corporations move jobs overseas. It has been hard for IT workers in the US during the last 4 years, they have been laid-off in huge numbers, for a relatively young industry, and the return to health has been compromised by the offshoring taking away most jobs that would have come as part of the recent economic recovery. But offshoring hasn't worked out for all the people that have done it, and like corporate outsourcing before it, lust for offshore projects will abate and become part of the fabric of the IT industry. Partly this is because writing software is just plain, hard to do. And while India has a lot of people, proportionally I doubt the Indians have any greater number of good programmers that the US and Europe. During the year we will hear more about some of the abysmal Offshoring failures, quietly of course, as no US corporation wants to be seen as the laughing stock of the Dow. Some companies will bring back some work, others will take their first plunge into these icy offshoring waters. While the current Bush government is highly unlikely to change the course of current events in regards to Offshoring, certain government entities may be forced to limit their offshoring lust, mainly due to (privacy and) security issues.

Cell and Cores

The last few months have seen two competing ways to attack the problem of processing power and how to increase it. On the one hand is the processor technology called Cell, and on the other is the technology around dual core processors. These two technologies will be fighting each other by year end, in a battle highly reminiscent of the old RISC/CISC battles, for that is what they are.

Tools

The last few years have seen a decided slow down in tool development. While there have been new product releases, they have hardly been earth shaking. If the IT economy starts to stabilize this year expect to see a lot more tool vendors coming out with products that offer much improved features. From integration to VOIP and Wireless devices, to better support for GRID computing, and more inspired use of perhaps some of the Open Source systems, the year could be a fresh start for a weary part of the industry.