These soon in: 2008’s headlines revealed

CHARLES DICKENS nailed it in the first line of his Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

It is a melancholy thought that the passing of years is marked by more similarities than differences. The headlines don’t change, just the cast of characters. So let’s cut to the chase, cut out the middleman, and meet at the winning line and post next year’s
headlines this year, because 2008 is probably going to look a lot like 2007, albeit with a few plot differences.

10. Ruiz out at AMD. Hector has been dancing in the last chance saloon for so long now that they’ve asked him to finish his drink twice and now they’re stacking the chairs on his table while unplugging the jukebox and making not-so-subtle pointing gestures.

9. Apple interested in Palm purchase. The assets are depreciating faster than a doner kebab on a skewer but desperate times call for desperate measures and Palm could well sell on 2008. If it does, then don’t bet against Apple being the buyer. Steve Jobs was a huge fan of the original Pilot, the engineering talent at Palm still has value, and Apple is gung ho for mobile.

8. Apple debuts 3G Iphone. Not so much a case of if but when, of course, but the interesting thing will be how Apple manages the transition. The Edge versions will become defunct pronto and the last buyers won’t be at all happy.

7. Black days for tech as US stocks take a tumble.
Confidence in the sector has gone from the optimism of a man on his wedding day, to bullish, to frail this year, but stock values have been resilient so far. They often are, just before the big fall.

6. Fujitsu mulls Sun buy. You’re made for each other, you need each other, now go and make it happen.

5. Scott McNealy to lead startup. His golf handicap is lower than ever but he’s driving the wife crazy. Finally she tells him: ‘Go get a job with some publicity-hungry startup, wouldja Scottie.’

4. Bloggers give up the ghost. It chews up all your time, you make next to nowt from it, and now all the big publishers have got all their hacks blogging. So what do you think happens next?

3. Yahoo caves in and sells out to Microsoft. They’ve got more complementary and crossover than you can shake a stick at, and Microsoft needs to make a big move.

2. Flash notebooks go mainstream. Build up the volume and notebooks with Flash drives are a goer. Apple might be the pacesetter here.

1. Apple to use AMD. If AMD can convince Apple that it still has the march on scale-out servers and Apple tries to capitalise on its client position of power… µ