This will be the year of the Chinese phone manufacturers.
I think we will see Apple lose second place for smartphones and there is even a chance that Samsung could be knocked off first place, though that is unlikely. There has been no announcement of an early release Galaxy S6 so I suspect we will see some more S5 variants before hearing about an S6, though I would be surprised if there isn't one this year, even if it isn't actually called an S6.
As the world economy tightens even further this year, the focus will be more in emerging markets like Africa, South America and the Middle East and on the lower-end of the phone market.
Once again, I don't see the smartwatch making much progress this year and tablet sales will continue to fall, making way for the next variant of the lower-end notebook range. I don't see the Google Chromebooks taking much space here so it will be something else, probably some kind of low-end hybrid device.
Based on last year I am hesitant to suggest that anything much bigger than 128GB will be the mainstay for thumb drives and also for camera and personal device plug-in memory space. I do expect the 6TB drives to do better this year and 256GB SSDs will be the sweet spot for storage in lighter notebooks.
Windows 9, now called Windows 10, will come out and I expect it to do well, particularly in the business market space where Windows 8 has made little headway. Microsoft has sensibly moved away from touch-focus and back to a more traditional approach. Some of the new features look very useful. There will be little change in the dynamics of browser usage and I don't see Microsoft's IE making any headway against the likes of Chrome or Firefox this year.
I don't see much movement in the digital camera area either this year though I do expect to see better lens technology in phones again for 2015. Plan on seeing better low light handling and perhaps better auto focusing technology emerge this year.
This will also be the year newspapers move further away from print to digital delivery, or at least they will try. There are still many people, including yours truly, that prefer to read the paper versions in the morning and do the crossword before heading off to work. Once again I would like to see a nice colour E Ink range of devices start to appear this year but once again I won't be holding my breath.
As far as printing technologies are concerned, once again no real changes though we might see a bit more interest in 3D printing this year. Sadly I still see no improvement in the quality of content in places like the Twittersphere and social media. There will be more focus on self rather than on others in general. I also expect to see less interest in research and more interest in the immediate response or the first hit from a Google search. There will also be a push to move credit card payments onto personal devices. Who will win this particular battle remains to be seen.
There will be a gradual shift this year towards 4K or the equivalent higher definition monitors. The prices on these are already starting to fall so this will be the year it makes it into more homes, both as TVs and monitors for PCs and screens on notebooks. What I do not see changing is the maximum monitor size of 30 inches. The current standard maximum size is 27 inches but 28, 29 and 30-inch monitors are also available.
I don't see malware attacks reducing in frequency though I do expect them to become more sophisticated. Torrent-based downloads will also not reduce but they will get smarter and harder to catch as more people become aware of VPN and the benefits this technology can provide. This year might see the demise of the music CD as the primary medium for distribution as music providers finally realise it is a world marketplace, not just one in a given country. OK, I admit it that the last prediction is more of a wish than an expected reality but an IT guy can dream, can't he?
I do expect 2015 to provide fewer jobs for IT in general, partly due to what I predict to be a general downturn in all markets across the globe. While you might think that good IT implementation would introduce efficiencies and make working easier when things get tough, it is often the department that gets cut first.
I do hope that all readers have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2015.
James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years’ standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com