Fernando's Predictions for 2004

IT IS AGAINST INQ rules to WUI ("write under the influence"). [Eh? Ed.] But on the typical hot afternoon so enjoyable of Christmas days down here in the south hemisphere, and while I was recovering from the drinking hangover, I started looking at my $25 crystal ball and suddenly, images started appearing. So here are my predictions for the coming year, to be taken with a large bag of salt.

1 Carly Fiorina becomes the Queen of Spain

2 Pro-Microsoft pundits will continue their repeated attacks on McNealy and Java. Despite this, "dot-Net and C#" will continue to be one big cloud of hype, hardly making an impact outside "100% Microsoft shops" and the company's white papers [And the INQ, Ed.].

3 Steve Ballmer will announce that "you are with proprietary software and free enterprise capitalism, or you are with the terrorists".

4 Bill Gates will donate even more billions to some fashionable cause like "AIDS research and prevention in Africa", while insisting that public schools in the U.S. must install Windows XP and Microsoft Office and NOT Linux and OpenOffice.

5 Following the tradition started by the trade press in 1993, not one or two but four articles this time will be announcing OS/2's imminent death. Despite this, IBM's OS/2 and its licensed and rebranded 'eComstation' product will continue running worldwide by tens of thousands of advocates, to IBM's despair.

6 SCO will sue and send $1M bills to every government branch found using Linux. IBM's CEO will offer NASA $1B cash and indemnify the agency from any damages if they make SCO's Darl McBride a "space tourist" in orbit, but with no return ticket.

7 Windows for Mobile devices will be declared "officially stable", and bundled into every wrist watch manufactured by the top five watch manufacturers. The company's visionary founder, Bill Gates, will tout the benefits of "giving every person in the world the ability to edit their Excel spreadsheets, viewing Powerpoint presentations up to 15MB in size and listening to DRM-restricted .WMA audio files that customers prefer over MP3, while on the go" and all in a half-inch LCD screen!

8 Bearded free software advocate Richard Stallman will shock the world by posing nude on the cover of some smutty magazine, under the headline "I'm too sexy for my code - Richard Stallman opens up with no proprietary clothes". Critics will call this "just a publicity stunt by someone addicted to cameras", following his mistaken detention at the Rome airport, after being confused by Italian police with some middle east terrorist high on their Wanted List.

9 In a yet another cost-cutting measure, AOL will fire all their remaining programmers, shipping MSN CDs with a sticker covering the product name, just enough to replace the letters "MSN" with "AOL". The company's management will call this "a bold step to ensure the Online Unit's long term survival and technological leadership"

10 ZZ Top will make a surprise comeback after singing their former hit song "Certified Blues" at the multi-billion dollar launch event for Internet Exploiter 8 and Windows Media 11, both part of Microsoft's "Trustworthy Computing" initiative.

11 Windows XP Second Edition Service Pack 4 will be required to access any Windows Media 11 and IE-8 "optimized content". Steve Ballmer and the pro-Microsoft Association for Competitive Technology will call these developments "a win for consumers and software innovation". Prepare your wallet.

12 Sun will use its huge cash reserves to buy Lindows Inc. and PalmSource, giving the company a foot into the (until then elusive) consumer market and giving Windows some well deserved and well-funded fight on PC desktops and mobile devices. OK, I wish!

13 SCSI, Serial-ATA, USB 2.0, Firewire, PCI-X, Bluetooth, 802.11x and in fact all the presents you gave or received for Christmas 2003 will become obsolete, too slow, or replaced by something better no later than Dec 31, 2004.

14 At an EU antitrust summit, "experts" will testify under oath and on behalf of Microsoft that "Office, Outlook, Visio and the animated paperclip are an integral part of the Operating System".

15 One gigabyte of RAM will suddenly be "just enough" after yet another round of Office and Operating System upgrades.

16 Oracle's Larry Ellison will go AWOL after "going postal" at a shareholders' meeting on PeopleSoft's headquarters.

17 2004 will be the year when Mike Magee finally gets invited to the annual Playboy Mansion party. [That's enough predictions Fernando, Ed.]