Chief Technologist Rob's Predictions for 2000
Fm: UGeek.com
posted 12/30/99
1. Rambus DRAM trickles into oblivion
Rambus will still be around, but in very small volumes. There will be no Rambus chipsets for the Athlon or Socket 7, and Intel's new chipsets will run with 133 MHz*2 DDR SDRAM instead of RDRAM. No other platform will embrace Rambus besides Intel's i820 and i840 chipsets. Rambus may score more victories with embedded systems or possibly console games, but otherwise, Intel is going to drop it like a bad habit.
2. USB will kick serial and parallel ports off of some ATX motherboards
Nowadays, the serial port is pretty much useless, and the parallel port could easily be removed. The only thing we need parallel ports for now is printers. Just about everything else has a USB equivalent. We saw motherboards start to lose ISA in 1999. In 2000, some will feature four USB ports and no serial or parallel ports. Those motherboards will be the ones that I look at buying. No legacy for me.
3. FireWire gets an in, but is still fringe
AMD is muttering about an Athlon chipset with FireWire support in 2000, but FireWire will continue to be a port on a PC looking for something to be plugged into it. Sure, some people will use FireWire and support is now included in Windows 2000, but remember how long it took USB to be real? USB is still struggling to become the mainstream connection choice, and just when it is becoming accepted USB 2.0 is about to hit, offering much faster speeds.
4. DVD+CD-RW will become the standard luxury drive
This type of drive combines all the functionality of a CD-RW drive and adds DVD-ROM ability as well. Expect to see them offered standard on high-end systems in 2000, making plain old DVD or CD-RW drives obsolete. You will either get a flat CD-ROM drive or a DVD+CD-RW. Toshiba was originally expected to ship one of these drives in October 1999 and they are now expected in February 2000. There will be no real writeable DVD standard due to legal problems with the MPAA, and the world will be left using junky tape VCRs to record television shows instead of a cool optical disk technology.
5. The year will close with 1200 MHz chips, and Intel's 800 MHz Itanium
Chips running at 1 GHz will be hit in the first half of the year when Intel and AMD competition heats up, and we will leave the year with 1200 MHz chips on the horizon. AMD and Intel will both have updated cores out, and Intel will start "sampling" the Itanium at 800 MHz. I don't expect that the Itanium will be in any type of real volume production during 2000, as Intel will have problems ramping such a complex design up to acceptable clock speeds.
6. Napster will be stifled
Napster will face a legal blow and be forced to do some sort of filtering by an artist or song list provided by the RIAA. People will initially get around it by changing the name of artists and songs to include odd characters, and there will be another crackdown. The RIAA won't be able to stop Napster per se, but it will be able to put a damper on it. In fact, it already has just with its lawsuit. The RIAA will face further scrutiny for its actions against public domain music, and consumers will continue to blame the RIAA and justify their illicit MP3 use due to their inability to find the music they want in CD stores on and off the 'Net.
7. Socket 7 will dry up and start disappearing
Already, users are getting sick of Socket 7. The fastest chips available for it top out at 533 MHz, and AMD is having trouble ramping the K6-2 up much faster than that, even at .18 micron process. Socket 7 will live until the middle of 2000 and then will dry up like crazy when AMD releases its socketed "Socket A" motherboards and chips. Even Cyrix/Via chips will be Socket 370-compatible.
8. RedHat will buy Corel and Be Inc. and get into the ISP business
RedHat will buy Corel to gain an office suite of its own and GUI technology to better compete with Microsoft. I think RedHat will also make good on the rumor of it purchasing Be Inc to get its multimedia technology and Internet device experience and deals. RedHat should buy the Opera browser, but it won't. RedHat should see the power of providing Internet access to its people and will partner with someone or buy an ISP in order to offer dial-up access out of the box, similar to what Apple is expected to do early in 2000 with its iMac sales.
9. Instant Messaging war heats up
A new independent, open-source messaging platform will take center stage that connects all the other platforms. AOL et al will ignore it at first and then try blocking it, causing a major uproar and possibly some legal investigation into AOL's practices, or a boycott of ICQ/AIM in favor of a more "compatible" and open source IM. RedHat will support the upstart and perhaps take it under the RedHat wing.
10. Mozilla will hit, but may be too little too late
The future of Linux and UNIX Web browsing centers on a slow-moving Mozilla organization put together by the inept tatters of Netscape that are left after AOL gutted it. I expect a beta will be around in June 2000, and a final release in Q3/Q4. The release will be embraced by the open source community, but will be plagued with odd HTML display issues that make it even harder for small Web developers, instead of making it easier. Mozilla purists will not let up, insisting that the display bugs are "standard" HTML features, strangely mirroring problems with Navigator, even though Mozilla is supposed to be built new from the ground up.
11. AMR slots will start disappearing
Some manufacturers will push AMR slots, and the public will continue to revile them. No one will release a combination sound/modem PCI board to combat the AMR foolishness, even though that would be cool. Towards the end of 2000, Geeks will make fun of people that purchase motherboards with AMR slots, like they make fun of people with integrated graphics chips nowadays.
12. LCD panels will not be nearly standard, but we'll see 16" LCDs in laptops
There will be an LCD boom in early 2000, with prices coming down and consideration for desktop PCs happening again; however, this will quickly lead to a glut from high demand and larger and larger LCD size requirements. Dell will release a 16" or 17" LCD screen on a laptop with a new form factor with built-in handle, getting closer to the size of an artist's portfolio case.
13. NVidia rules the graphics heap
Competitors to NVidia will try to compete by creating solutions with multiple graphics processors, including 3Dfx in March 2000. ATI already has the ATI MAXX, but it's not available anywhere yet. NVidia will strike back with its own version of these multiple chip graphics boards--possibly with multiple cores in a single chip--and will mop the floor with the multiple chip solutions from ATI, 3Dfx, and Matrox. I do not expect that S3 will not have a multiple chip solution in 2000, but it may announce one that doesn't actually come out in time to ship in 2000 (cruel, aren't I?).
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