So it is that time again when I try and gaze into the crystal ball and guess what 2018 will bring the IT world.
For an easy one, based on what happened this year, there will be a new SQLServer version 2018 released later this year. Microsoft has been increasing its release rate to try and keep up with the Azure cloud-based offerings. Microsoft, and others, will continue to push their cloud-based technologies. I'm going out on a limb here to predict a cloud hack of some magnitude this year. More organisations will invest in cloud-based solutions to keep their bottom lines better. Microsoft will mess this up by increasing their fees.
Along the same line, software and application release cycles will continue to speed up to try and catch the cloud versions. This will cause problems for system administrators and software manufactures, especially the smaller businesses that have niche markets and are slow to adapt to the changing face of technology. The victim here will be the testing cycles, which will continue to shorten or vanish as products are pushed out as fast as possible. This will put the pressure back on the buyer to check that what they are buying does what it is supposed to.
PC sales will continue to drop but not as much as mobile platforms would like and mobile phone apps will continue to grow as more and more workers want to use their increasingly more powerful smart devices to help them at work.
Malware will continue to be a problem but with more of a focus on mobile platforms, partly because the older technologies no longer offer a challenge to hackers but also because data will become more distributed. Remember to keep your anti-malware products up to date and don't be afraid to change them if word gets around that they are not so safe.
On the hardware side, monitors for example will not get any bigger but possibly offer higher resolutions, better frame rates and faster response times. There will be no change in cameras apart from some minor improvements and more phones with dual lenses. There will also be more with an optical zoom but that will be limited to 2-3x. Printers will barely change apart from better Bluetooth and wireless connectivity.
One change expected this year is a broader move to wireless internet connectivity. The smart nations will allow or force providers to have unlimited connectivity for a reasonable price as the ailing copper and older fibre networks fail to provide the connectivity.
Apple will continue to lose ground this year as I expect at least one other Chinese phone manufacturer to pass them in the top five. Samsung will hold out at No.1 for another year. Phone screens will continue to hover around the 6-inch mark with more edge-to-edge and screen wraparound models. All other changes will be incremental but they will crack the home button under the screen this year. Someone might even incorporate the repairing screen technology found by accident recently but that will probably happen later. The real mystery is pricing. It looks like it will continue to go up but that trend will have to stop soon, if not this year then next.
As usual CPUs and GPUs will speed up this year and there will still be so many choices that no one outside of the computer building arena will know or care about which one will be in your next computer. Thumb drives should hit 2TB, hard drives will hit 12TB for the affordable price point and something higher for those with the money. MicroSD will peak over 1TB, probably, and we are due for a new TV screen resolution but I don't think the public will be interested as 4K content is impossible to find outside of specialised streaming services.
What will happen this year is the exposure of a major provider, like Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo and others, bias towards some sections of the community. This will include filtering, blocking of content they don't like and generally pushing their own agendas while saying they are for a free and open internet. This will trigger the creation of new, freer, more balanced service providers.
My wish list remains mostly unchanged from last year. As a musician with no Apple devices I am sick of iOS being the primary supported platform for many products. That started to change in 2017 and I hope the trend continues. The big one still remains a new battery technology that is stable, won't catch fire and provide more power in a smaller package. Carbon nanotubes look promising but I'm not sure if they will scale. It would be nice if fewer people were affected by malware attacks and stopped using passwords that can be cracked by brute force algorithms in a millisecond.
As usual, I wish all Post readers a happy, healthy, safe and wealthy 2018.
James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.