Hottest Tech Trends 2005

For anyone who has any stake in the ICT sector, 2005 will be a year of no
surprises. The biggest trend reported by all research agencies: This year will
be a year of no radical trends. A group of tech bigwigs, at a technology trends
event in Silicon Valley, deliberated over the trends for the current and coming
year, and came up with, self-admittedly, a set of totally unremarkable trends.
What has gone on in 2004 will continue, and maybe result in something in 2005.
In fact, the phrase, "will continue," crops up quite often in our
compilation of trends as well. But even so, the year ahead will see a lot of
technologies that had just been launched or were in a disorganized state last
year, finally taking a cohesive form, and their utilization becoming more and
more mainstream.

Beyond the Gigahertz race

Just like 2004, speed increases are nice, but they will remain hard to
justify for most business users, for whom "fast" was "fast
enough" around 1999. And so, this year will see Intel go beyond the clock
speed and concentrate on dual-core processors. Intel is planning for a brighter
2005. This means an accelerated move to Pentium M core technology, the dual-core
Pentium 4s, or something else.

When Intel announced that the Pentium 4 "Prescott" core would not
reach 4.0 GHz, the countdown began for the obvious 3.8 GHz release. This finally
arrived in the form of the Pentium 4 570J, a 3.8 GHz processor featuring 1 MB of
L2 cache. The P4 'Northwood' will fade from the market in 2005, while Intel
will push the LGA775, and i925XE and i915X and the Celeron, which has been
migrated to 90 nanometer.

Another thing that Intel did was to finally sign a cross-licensing agreement
with nVidia, so the latter is allowed to supply its chipsets to the Intel
markets as well, and its dual-PCI-Express-card SLI graphics technology to the
Pentium 4 platform. Intel also announced that it will fade out the P4 Northwood
this year. This year, Intel and AMD will be will be battling each other in
dual-core style.

More Linux on the desktop

In 2005, several vendors released desktop environments that mimic the
Windows interface, establishing Linux as a low-cost alternative to Windows.
However, too much fragmentation, combined with a lack of critical desktop
applications and increasing dependence on the Windows platform, will prevent
desktop Linux adoption from increasing significantly.

Not just Longhorn

Microsoft will concentrate on improving XP features and lay off Longhorn
hype for a while.

The Penguin march continues

X86 rush towards 64-bit computing. Bill Gates set the bar high on his
company's expectations for 64-bit extensions to x86 systems. "Between now
and the end of 2005, we'll go from having very few 64-bit chips out there to
virtually 100 percent what AMD ships, and the majority of what Intel ships
within less than two years will be 64-bit capable chips," Gates said at the
2004 Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle. In the Windows world,
software is finally catching up to hardware when it comes to 64-bit extensions
to x86 systems. AMD has been shipping Opteron processors, with support for
64-bit memory addressing and adherence to the x86 instruction set, since 2003.
The problem has been that Microsoft initially didn't commit to delivering
Windows servers for the chip, but then committed only with beta code. The long
wait is nearly over.

Onset of dual-core and multi-core processors

Looming behind the 64-bit wave is the advent of multi-core processors. Both
Intel and AMD are working hard to put multiple cores on a single processor,
effectively turning the silicon that slides into one processor socket on the
motherboard into a mini-SMP system. The first round will consist of dual-core
processors. Shortly after that, four-core and denser processors should emerge.
AMD expects to ship its first dual-core Opteron processor soon. IBM is already
committed to upgrading its Opteron-based e326 server to support dual-core. Intel
is also hot on the trail of multi-core computing with a detailed public roadmap.
The chip giant intends to ship its first dual-core server processors in the
first quarter of 2006.

Linux on server expands

Linux will expand within server operating environments. Linux software
licence revenues are set to grow 78.6 percent to $11.6 mn in 2005 in Asia.

Fuel cells-finally here?

A fter 15 years of hype, this year may finally see a product roll-out in the
fuel cells area. Micro fuel cells produce power by exchanging fuel-often
methanol-and water between a thin, reactive film membrane in an
electrochemical reaction. They are refilled with fuel instead of recharged,
potentially freeing portable gadgets from the outlet-attached charger. These
micro fuel cells are expected to be smaller, lighter and up to ten times more
powerful than batteries-once they reach maturity. To date, no company has
produced a viable commercial micro fuel cell. Some of the obstacles have been
technical, while a nonexistent supply chain and a lack of industry standards
have been some other issues causing the delay.

Now, finally, several fuel cells are in pilot testing, and companies like
Mechanic Technology's MTI MicroFuel Cells, Toshiba, and Medis Technologies are
promising product launches this year. Eventually, micro fuel cells will replace
the portable battery.

Mobile is the new black

By 2007-08, 65 percent of enterprises will have wireless applications
deployed, with mobile devices outnumbering traditional PCs. Converged devices
will replace most standalone PDAs, except in specialized environments.

Voice rules

Year 2005 and 2006 will be the breakout years for mobile/wireless data, with
enterprise budgets increasing and mobile e-mail and field-force automation being
critical applications, carriers will struggle with coverage and network quality.

The MFP mania

The print industry is seeing consumers move away from standalone copiers,
printers, scanners and fax machines to all-in-one multifunction products (MFPs).
Consolidating old office equipment into a single networked device can reduce
supply and repair costs, while the advanced features of better MFPs can make
employees more productive. MFPs can process numerous printing jobs while
allowing other users to scan and fax documents simultaneously, and their
footprints are teeny compared to those of their bulky ancestors.

Mobility drives wireless printing

The need for printing from mobile access devices will drive Bluetooth
adoption in printers. IDC Smart handheld research predicts that 80 percent of
handheld devices shipped in 2006 will be embedded with Bluetooth. The ability to
print easily and affordably is one of the primary concerns of mobile device
users. A high percentage of business users want to print directly from their
mobile devices. In a survey conducted by IDC, 48 percent of handheld users and
32 percent of cellular/PCS users indicate they would like to print. This
suggests a very large target market. In another survey by Lyra Research, 75
percent of surveyed PDA and PDA/Phone users state they are either "somewhat
interested" or "very interested" in the ability to print directly
from their mobile device.

Tiered storage comes of age

Storage today comes in as many flavors and prices like ice cream, and tiered
storage makes the most of that. The idea is nothing new: Automatically move data
to the lowest-cost storage device possible, depending on timeliness and
importance. Vendors are yielding to market demand and integrating low-end and
high-end storage within the same device. This eventually leads to information
lifecycle management (ILM), where data is matched to the appropriate media
throughout its useful life. Expect to hear a lot about new products in the
tiered storage market in the coming year, as the market moves toward the ILM
goal.

Storage hardware will be rendered a tiered commodity by software-based
information life-cycle functionalities-virtualization, automated storage
resource management/provisioning, data protection/recoverability, hierarchical
storage management (HSM)-like functionality, data classification/movement,
interoperability, etc-which will become the primary enterprise storage
differentiator. Consolidation of storage resources will be at the top of IT
managers in 2005, analysts say.

VoIP hots up

Voice over IP is perhaps the hottest technology in the telecommunications
industry today. VoIP-based services will grow even more as a mainstream
technology for business use. Expect a lot of competition for the trillions of
minutes and billions of dollars' worth of voice calls that business users make
each year.

VoIP-once the domain of cash-strapped start-ups-now counts some of the
biggest names in telecom among its providers. In March, AT&T introduced
residential VoIP service in New Jersey and Texas, and it expects to expand to
100 US markets by the end of the year. Look for cable companies to start pushing
VoIP big-time as well. By sending voice traffic over private IP networks, the
big carriers and cable providers have been able to boost call quality, which
often lagged when calls were sent over the public Internet. The next big step
for VoIP will likely be its integration with cellular and Wi-Fi technologies.
The first devices should launch in healthcare by 2006.

ESPs abound

Enterprise Solutions Platforms (ESPs) will reshape the application software
business.

Centralized network planning and architecture

Areas of emphasis during 2005-06 will be security, convergence, and
mobility, while application awareness and optimization (especially XML/SOAP)
will become key drivers during 2007-09.

A broad view of remote access

By 2006/07, mobile devices will include cross-network roaming capability (eg,
3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth), with WiMAX integration by 2009.

Nupur Chaturvedi