[IP] Ten Top Trends - 2003 from Red Herring

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

The December "Red Herring" forecasts what will be the top ten trends next
year.  The San Jose Mercury News editorially opines that it will take the
"next big thing" - like the PC or the Internet - to keep jobs from
continuing to migrate to wherever they can be performed at lowest cost.

Which of these trends (if any) will be the next big thing?

1- Wireless local area networks (wi-fi - IEEE Std. 802.11) will be rolled
out by major international wireless carriers, competing with 3G.  Free
service will be available from 'hot spots' - piggybacking on others'
service (there are 143 hot spots in San Francisco, 88 in New York44 in San
Jose, and 38 in Orlando.

2- Virtualization - a seamless corporate IT infrastructure will be all the
rage for CIOs worldwide, a promising hardware/software market for those
with small commodity products, and perhaps Sun, if N-1 succeeds.

3- Venture capital won't disappear - but the level will go back to 1990.  A

tough year for startups, since most of the $100 billion investment expected

will go into late-stage companies, spin-offs, and public companies.

4- New specialized chips will protect networks and devices.  Security
breaches are estimated to have cost $1.7 billion since 9-11-01.  Chip
hardware will be less vulnerable than software.

5- Nanotechnology will see slow commercialization; a backlash will slow the

pace and spawn a new discipline: nanoethics.

6- Financial reporting will include stock options as expenses, a near-term
disaster for reported earnings, but companies and investors will adjust,
long-term.

7- Bankruptcies will accelerate in telecommunications, as the lease price
for E-1 (European equivalent of T-1, at 2 Mbps) lines drops from $10,000
per month in 1999 to under $1000 per month in 2003.

8- Biotechnology will benefit from the fight against bioterrorism.  In
about 5 years, bioterror will rank as a public health concern alongside
AIDS, cancer, and heart disease.

9- Digital radio broadcasting will take off, starting a 10-15 year
transition to all digital radio all the time.

10- Broadband will become the purview of cable companies, with twice the
potential customers as the Baby Bells' DSL.  The pricing will shift to
bandwidth sensitive - cheaper for e-mail than for Web browsing.  Cable TV
will also expand video on demand.  Personal Video Recorder functions will
be included in set-top boxes.  Voice over cable will expand, taking traffic

from the switched telephone network (now, only AT&T Broadband and Cox offer

it).

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