Fernando's predictions for 2005

BACK BY popular demand [No. Ed.] here are my predictions for 2005. I know, many of last year's predictions failed to materialise. But I blame the error on the low quality of Chinese crystal ball I bought back then. So this time the INQ broke the piggy bank and bought me a new Wizard Crystal Ball from SouthWest England. Unfortunately I managed to mix the results of the old broken ball and the new one.

So, here for you, with a 0.00005% certainty level, are the headlines you'll see this year [But not on the INQ. Ed.] :

1. 2005 becomes the year when Video-on-demand over broadband takes off. TV over cable modem and likewise "TV over ADSL" services begin to take off. The technology, at least on the software side is here. There's a big project in Russia, and similar plans are underway in Norway. With telecoms deploying next generation ADSL services like "ADSL 2+" at 18 Mbps like it's already happening in France it's only a matter of time for these services to become mainstream, yes, including even England and the U.S..

2. AOL finally dumps Netscape and releases not one but three different AOL browsers, none of them based on the Gecko engine. The new AOL browsers will let the users change between the Mosaic, Opera and IBM WebExplorer engines. Ironically, AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein once again "denies that the final hour has come for the Netscape browser".

3. Solaris x86 becomes Unix (SCO, HP and IBM totally destroy their Unix strategies due to ignorance, neglect, or on purpose - not necessarily in that order).

4. Despite a failed campaign to make Carly Fiorina the Queen of Spain, she decides to pack her bags and replace troubled Martha Stewart, becoming the host of her own cable TV entertaiment offer: "Carly's Corporate Improvement Channel" (CCIC TV).

5. Desktop Linux _finally_ makes inroads, with Gateway and/or Dell offering preloads of Linspire, Sun JDS, or Suse ( the ball is not clear on this).

6. IBM sells its last profitable and/or flagship business unit to some foreign competitor, of course. After this wonderful business strategy, a Gallup/USAToday poll shows only 2.5% of Americans remember what IBM stood for. 15% think it stands for International Brotherhood of Magicians, and the rest doesn't have a clue.

7. Firefox splits in two products. After splitting the popular Mozilla Suite into a stand-alone browser and e-mail client, the foundation's director Mitchell Baker reaffirms it's "commitment to split-split-split applications", because "our splitting policy has been a huge success". The Firefox browser is thus split into two separate products: WaterWolf html parser and the LightningChicken user interface tool kit. Users are told to mix the two, add some boiled water, to get a functional browser.

8. George W. Bush's runaway deficits hit an all-time high, raising fears of a government shut down. To the rescue comes Microsoft's softly spoken Steve Ballmer who pays all deficits cash, and also uses the opportunity to steal the EU competition commissioner, Mario Monti, from Brussel's reign, for an undisclosed cash figure, becoming Microsoft's PR head for Europe. The INQUIRER once again makes history by letting you know of the news picture several months in advance, straight from the crystal ball:

9. After suffering an on-stage nervous breakdown, softly spoken Ballmer calls his IT career over, and starts a low-profile job selling Chevys somewhere in Nevada.

10. During Microsoft's "Dot-Not" World Tour, Microsoft's new CEO Bill Gates claims there's "undisputable proof from a Microsoft-sponsored Mindcraft study showing that Sun's Java programming language and runtime environment causes birth defects".

11. IBM finally caves in and open sources its 32-bit OS/2 kernel, by donating it to the Science and Technology Museum in Canada. OS/2 users surprisingly don't care. They have been tweaking the leaked kernel sources on their own for years.

12. Microsoft announces the leak of its WinXP kernel source code. Journalists around the world download the 1.5 gigabyte hairball but fail to identify the code lines for the long-suspected do-nothing loops that make WinXP so much slower than Win2k, not to mention the Win2k slowness vs. NT 4.0.

13. Following what the company calls a successful marketing strategy, Telecom Argentina offers "mega-metered" internet access packs. Dubbed "a revolutionary package with 20 free mails a month and 512MB of data transfer" in a mega-expensive marketing campaign, the strategy puzzles consumers. Under the new plan, extra traffic above 512MB is charged by the company at a rate of 50 petrodollars per yottabyte fraction of 64 bytes.

14. Mike Magee leaves TheInquirer.net in the hands of Evil Dr. Spinola, to focus on his obsession: the Magee Rehab Center. Fernando and Charlie Demerjian reportedly become the centre's first patients to be admitted to its "IT Hack Rehab Hall".

I surely hope my predictions work out this time. Happy New Year to everyone! {You're fired. Ed.] µ