London (England) - We've all read Rob Enderle's year end predictions by now, but the English boys in red have pulled out a list, checked it twice, to see if they can't nail a little bit of what's going to happen in 2008. As the list is read down from #10 to #1, the biggest shocker comes at you straight off. At #10, The Inquirer's Martin Veitch is predicting Ruiz out at AMD. The complete list is as follows:
#10 - Ruiz out at AMD.
#9 - Apple interested in Palm purchase.
#8 - Apple debuts 3G iPhone.
#7 - Black days for tech as US stocks take a tumble.
#6 - Fujitsu mulls Sun buy.
#5 - Scott McNealy to lead startup.
#4 - Bloggers give up the ghost (slowly go away).
#3 - Yahoo caves in and sells out to Microsoft.
#2 - Flash notebooks go mainstream.
#1 - Apple to use AMD.
Read more ... The Inquirer.
Author's opinion
Interesting that the predictions are two-fold here for AMD. First, Ruiz is out. Second, Apple begins to use AMD processors in addition to Intel processors. Apple's first x86-based system was announced in June, 2005, and introduced in May, 2006. If there was a 2-year exclusivity clause in their contract, then we could see AMD Apple PCs on our about June, 2008, which would be interesting.
Personally, I think we'll see a lot of mergers or acquisitions in 2008. There is a changing of the guard, as it were, related to the future of technology. No longer are devices sufficient enough in capability or new speed to address the needs of the consumer base. The merging of features and technology will now come together with an increased elegance and feature list that will amaze. The MID and PC industries will begin to see the significant software additions that the cell phone industry has seen, for example.
Of course, that's just my opinion, but I'm probably right. :) I hope everyone has a great 2008!
